Koforidua, Nov. 2, GNA - The Internally Generated Fund (IGF) of the New Juaben Municipal Assembly is steadily improving due to prudent measures put in place to check leakages, Mr Alex Asamoah, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), has said. Addressing the Fourth Ordinary Meeting of the Fourth Session of the Fifth Assembly in Koforidua on Tuesday, he indicated that as at the end of September this year, total revenue of GH¢ 918,367.15 had been realized as against the estimated amount of GH¢ 1,548,598.00. That amount, he said, represented 59.3 percent for the nine month period under consideration.

Mr Asamoah said the budgeted expenditure under the IGF for 2010 was GH¢ 1,546,582.00 adding that as at September 30, the total expenditure made was GH¢ 861,974.45, representing 55.7 percent of the annual projection.

He indicated that on scrutinizing the financial statement of the assembly as at August 31, 2010, it had been realized that it was far behind the target in the property rate collection. "The Executive Committee on the recommendation of the Finance and Administration Sub-Committee has therefore agreed to engage RESOL, a private collector, to collect residential property rate and market tolls on commission basis for two months trial period". Mr Asamoah said the assembly had started prosecuting recalcitrant rate defaulters adding that the process was on-going and would continue till the end of the year.

He said as at September 30, this year, the assembly had received a gross total of GH¢ 1,034,957.03 as its share of the common fund. The MCE indicated that the assembly had so far received a total sum of GH¢ 757,808.68 as its share of the District Development Fund based on the 2006 Functional Organisational Assessment Tool (FOAT) test. Mr Asamoah announced that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development had released an amount of GH¢ 580,458.86 being the District Development Fund (DDF) allocated to the municipality for qualifying in the 2008 FOAT test.

He thanked all the staff for the effort they made towards helping the assembly to qualify for the DDF fund. 02 Nov. 10