Obuasi (Ash), Oct.14, GNA - The Obuasi Municipal Assembly has taken over the management of 17 public toilets from contractors and caretakers who were in arrears to the tune of 40 million cedis as at the end of September this year.

The decision to abrogate the contracts followed the refusal of the contractors and caretakers to abide by a two-week ultimatum given them by the assembly at its meeting held in April this year.

A report submitted to the assembly at the meeting said the contractors and caretakers were in arrears ranging from 200,000 cedis to 7.2 million cedis.

The management of the public toilets within the Obuasi Municipality took centre stage at the three-day meeting of the assembly at Obuasi.

Whilst some assembly members insisted that the assembly applied the April decision to abrogate the contracts, others held that it was necessary for the assembly to take lawful steps to address the problem instead of being emotional.

Mr Benjamin Annan, assemblyman for Sanso and Chairman of the Environmental Sub-Committee said the attitude of the caretakers and contractors were posing problems for the committee and therefore, called for the abrogation of the contracts.

Mr Joe Boampong, Municipal Chief Executive suggested that the assembly took legal action to retrieve all the money in arrears after which they determined whether to abrogate the contracts or not. Nana Asirifi Asare 11, Presiding Member asked the members to participate actively in activities aimed at improving the assembly's internally generated revenue.

"As an assembly we have an obligation to the people we serve in addition to ensuring that our development agenda too is on course", he stressed.

Nana Asirifi Asare said although the assembly had not been performing badly in terms of internally generated revenue, some revenue items continued to be poorly collected.

He therefore, emphasized the need for the assembly to review some of its data to enhance revenue collection.