The National Youth Authority in collaboration with the Wa Municipal Assembly, have engaged 20 youth to collect revenue in the municipality to improve local revenue generation.

The initiative would help address the challenges regarding revenue mobilisation of the Assembly, and its success would enable the National Youth Authority to extend the collaboration to other district assemblies to take on more youth to mobilise revenue on commission basis.

The agreement is on the theme: “Pay property rate to reduce youth crime”, and a percentage of the revenue generated would be used to establish a fund to support educational and entrepreneurial initiatives of brilliant but needy youth.

At a training programme on youth revenue mobilisation for 20 selected youth in the Wa municipality, Mr. Mumuni Sulemana, Upper West Regional Director of the Authority, drew the attention of government to the threat posed by youth unemployment, and urged the government to make concerted efforts to address it.

He encouraged the children to show commitment to the course and avoid abuses; urging them to report all recalcitrant taxpayers to the Assembly for legal action rather than engage them in fighting.

The youth were schooled on “How to manage finances as a revenue collector", "Revenue mobilisation techniques and zoning of areas", "Unassessed property in the municipality" and "Grouping of individuals”.

“Let the assembly realise a paradigm shift in its revenue mobilization efforts to enable the authorities to motivate you with your share of allowances from revenue collected”, Mr. Sulemana urged the youth.

Mr. Julius Dabuo, Wa Municipal Budget Analyst, said the Assembly had not been able to fully exploit avenues for collecting revenue, hence the need to engage the youth to help improve its revenue base.

He advised the youth to ensure that no value book was misplaced to avoid faulting the law.

“You must also avoid under-invoicing and barter trading in revenue mobilisation, giving favours and exemptions to taxpayers on political lines, and taking gifts and bribes from taxpayers to forgo payment”, he emphasised.

Mr. Dabuo urged the youth to sensitise taxpayers on behalf of the Assembly, and to set targets for themselves and work hard to achieve those targets to enable the Assembly to undertake more development projects.