Nkoranza (B/A), May 21, GNA - The Nkoranza District Assembly realized 1,672,335,615 cedis in revenue last year as against a target of 1,344,040,000 cedis.

Mr James Kwabena Appiah-Awuah, District Chief Executive, announced this when he addressed the first ordinary meeting of the 5th session of the Assembly at Nkoranza. He attributed the achievement to vigilance by the management, effective monitoring by the assembly members in revenue collection, excellent team work of the collectors and improved working relations between the collectors and taxpayers. Mr Appiah-Awuah urged the assembly members and the unit committees to strengthen their supervisory roles and to continue to support and encourage the revenue collectors. He stated that the quantum of the common fund allocated to every district depended upon its revenue generation from traditional resources and appealed to the people to redouble efforts and help to generate more revenue.

The DCE announced that about 221 youths in Nkoranza had been employed under the National Youth Employment Programme, 135 of whom were engaged as teaching assistants, 60 as health extension workers and 26 engaged in waste and sanitation management. Mr Appiah-Awuah said plans were far advanced to recruit about 50 more youth under the programme as community police personnel, while 250 of them would be assisted to go into large scale maize production. He expressed concern about the low patronage of the national health insurance scheme and urged assembly and unit committee members and traditional rulers to mount vigorous educational campaigns for more people to register.

"Only 65,826 people out of the district's population of 149,556 have registered with the scheme by the close of last year, he said and called on the management of the scheme to develop new strategies to rope in more members to sustain the scheme. On education, Mr Appiah-Awuah said more than one billion cedis received as capitation grants for basic schools had been disbursed to 246 schools.

He said the Assembly had provided 6,000 dual-desks and 550 teacher's tables and chairs for distribution to the various schools. Mr George Kofi Busia, Presiding Member, commended the members for their prompt attendance at meetings and urged them to maintain such spirit to promote the development of the District.