Regional News of Friday, 27 April 2012

Source: GNA

Akuapem North District Assembly faces revenue mobilisation challenge

Mr George Opare Addo, Akuapem North District Chief Executive (DCE) has identified low performance of revenue mobilisation as one major challenge confronting the Assembly.

He attributed the challenge to failure of private companies contracted to collect revenue on behalf of the assembly to live up to expectation hence the abrogation of their contracts.

The DCE said a task force had been set up to handle the situation and urged the assembly members to support the venture to achieve the objective.

Mr Opare Addo was speaking at the second session of the assembly at Akropong on Friday.

The DCE said the assembly collected GH¢ 122,737 between January and March, representing 29 per cent of the budget for the year as against GH¢ 53,893 collected last year within the same period.

On Health, the DCE said, a total of 107,111 people had so far been registered under the National Health Insurance Scheme in the district.

Mr Opare Addo said between January and December last year, the total claims of the scheme amounted to GH¢3,774,271.

He attributed the success story to the mass registration drive, which was embarked upon by the staff.

The DCE also announced that new strategies had been adopted to eliminate delays in vetting and processing of claims.

He therefore appealed to the assembly members to continue to educate their people, especially those who had so far not registered with the scheme to do so for them to achieve the 100 per cent coverage.

Touching on the National Youth Employment Programme, Mr Opare Addo said the various modules continued to engage the youth, although there had been some changes in the number of beneficiaries.

He said under the Youth Training Assistant module, the number of employees stood at 107, Youth in Health Extension 78, Youth in Security Services, 33 and Youth in Waste and Sanitation ,154.

Mr Opare Addo said a total of 250 people had been engaged under the Youth in Agriculture programme.

He said 15 computers were donated by the government, for the set up of an Information and Communication Technology Centre at Okorase.**