By Innocent Samuel Appiah

Having critically reviewed the activities of RevNet Ghana Limited in the Metropolis, the General Assembly of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA) has unanimously passed a resolution to renew its contract with the IT Service Provider Company for another four years to manage its revenue mobilization for the Assembly.

The renewal of the contractual agreement which is expected to be signed by both parties within next few days follows a revelation from the Assembly through its Ad hoc Committee that RevNet’s system of revenue mobilization is the best for the Assembly as evident in their 2013/2014 collection which was monitored by the Assembly’s Revenue Steering Committee (RSC).

This follows a recommendation by the RSC, chaired by the Presiding Member, Samuel Atta-Mensah to the General Assembly that there was the need to re-engage RevNet. The RSC which was set up by the Ad hoc Committee comprises staff of CCMA, Assembly Members and RevNet staff.
RevNet is a Ghanaian company that provides consultancy on improving revenue collection by the provision of full-proof computerized platforms that track revenue collection, blocks leakages and builds comprehensive database for the Assembly and following the remarkable performance in some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies’ (MMDAs), the CCMA engaged the services of RevNet in 2009 as part of the process of improving revenue collections in the Metropolis.
The Company seeks to tailor a revenue tracking, monitoring and collection management service that would meet the MMDAs requirements in a least-cost, low risk and most responsive manner.
The recommendation to renew the contract which was made at the Assembly’s Second Ordinary Meeting of the Fourth Session of the Sixth Assembly was due to the fact that RevNet was able to increase the revenue generation of the Assembly and introduced the use of a hand-held device known as Point of Sales (POS) device.
An Assembly Member who asked for anonymity said the decision to engage RevNet to implement the Electronic Banking System of Revenue Cycle Monitoring Service (EBS-RCM) was as a result of an observation that over the past the Assembly had not been able to maximize its revenue potentials due to challenges from the manual way of doing things.
“We have come to realize that RevNet had the solution to the challenges we were encountering in the area of revenue mobilization, which was affecting the developmental agenda of the Assembly. So we brought them in and today, I can confidently say that we are reaping good fruits. We observed that bringing RevNet on board would allow various revenue officers to focus on their responsibility that will bring about efficiency,” he opined.
He was, however, quick to say that the reason why most MMDAs do not like the system is that it blocks leakages and for that matter, prevents some officials who pocketed some of the monies collected. He, therefore, called on other MMDAs to contract RevNet to solve their financial challenges so as to help push forward the developmental agenda of the country.
Speaking in an interview after the meeting, Managing Director of RevNet, Opeyemi Ogungbo, after the Assembly had renewed the contract, he indicated that with the confidence reposed on the Company, they would continue to do their best to ensure that the Assembly exceeds its revenue target year-by-year, so that other MMDAs would be attracted to come on board by engaging the Company to help solve their financial problems.
Mr. Ogungbo noted that RevNet’s operations over the past years helped the Assembly’s objectives of increasing its Internally Generated Funds (IGF) and thereby reduced the Assembly’s reliance on disbursements from the District Assembly Common Fund and as such, made the implementation of a wider range of quality services to the Cape Coast Municipality.
According to him, during its five-year operation in the Metropolis, RevNet ensured the mitigation of collection challenges such as evasion, collusion with collectors, mistakes, among others; assisted in the identification of fraudulent debit, diversion of funds and excess charges on the Assembly’s account; established interconnectivity among stakeholders (collectors, participating banks, Assembly and RevNet); and identified areas requiring improvements to be addressed in the short, medium and long term in the Assembly’s IGF operations.
The Managing Director mentioned that his Company introduced the Point of Sale (POS) device and online Billing Application Software (BillSoftManger) services to the CCMA and other mandates alike after piloting the project, and noted that the device has efficiently worked.
“The POS devices are used for the collection of tolls in the market, lorry parks and street parking, BOPs as well as property rates (daily and yearly collections). These devices are wirelessly linked directly to the CCMA Electronic Banking System for Revenue Cycle Management (EBS-RCM) and online portals that can be monitored from the comfort of their offices,” Mr. Ogungbo explained.
For his part, Samuel Ashong, Financial Director of RevNet, said the scope of this project was to leverage on the present version of BillSoft application, integrate major components and make available customer billing and payment information on the internet using a published web portal. This project covered all current mandates of Revnet with the MMDAs and State Housing Company for their ground rents.
Mr. Ashong intimated that there was usually a disconnet between pay-points, banks and local client offices where bills were being printed. This, he said, becomes obvious in the event that payers did not show up with bills and vital information for posting of transactions such as the Payer ID, bill assessment reference, amount and revenue code.
“The Payer ID (Payer indentification number) is a unique number that opens the Payer to all his/her details on the ebs-rcm database. The Payer can use the Payer ID to access his/her information without a bill in hand. It is comparable to the account number of the customer of a bank and should be known by the payer at all times,” he noted.
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