A Case Study of Public Auditing

In the initial stage of DFID-Community Support Programme (CSP), aiming to cover 22 districts, preferably far remote VDCs of mid-west and far west regions of Nepal funded an Irrigation Project at Divyadewalpur VDC of Dadeldhura district. It was a 12 hours walk from the nearest road head. CSP had mandatory requirement for 100% public auditing of community managed projects funded by it.
It was the period of full-fledged armed conflict in Nepal and people used to think many times before visiting new places. Lack of trust, fear of being suspected and risk of torture, abduction were very common especially in remote parts of Nepal. However, CSP had no choice of public auditing. Working in the conflict and for the benefit of conflict affected target groups, having motto of demonstration of conflict and development can go parallel, CSP had to manage anyway to demonstrate transparency in its activities and win the trust of all project stakeholders.
CSP appointed a public auditor who dared to move forward. Passing hurdles of dozens enquiries of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) cadres in the field and facing their questions continuously for five days he got permission to organize a public auditing gathering in the project site. Risk taken by the public auditor was the extreme - pre-requisite put by the Maoist cadres to allow for this gathering was he will be abducted if the cadres find this gathering detrimental towards public interest!
At last public auditing session conducted in the presence of large stakeholders and Maoist cadres gathering. The process of project familiarisation, updating the project activities, making every rupee expenditure transparent, suggestion collection form stakeholders, seeking answers from the project management committee were the standard procedures followed. At the end of the program, the public auditor got a pleasant shock from cadres, shouting over him that why he did not told them beforehand about such good governance tool!
The public auditor took a long breathe of feeling secured. Community people expressed that they felt the public auditing is not that much "technical" that need outside expert to carry over. They put a question to public auditor that they can carry the public auditing in the future but does CSP recognise it? As public auditor was aware that CSP is willing to transfer that skill to community, he formed three members public auditing committee and provided quick orientation to them.
Then after, CSP felt no need for sending public auditor in that project. Two sessions of public auditing done by the committee is found excellent. However, CSP managed cross verification of the facts during project handing over time at the end. A light of hope arrayed to CSP that community people eager to learn the good practices provided that development people wish to transform the skills.