Bekwai (Ash), Feb.29, GNA - The Amansie East District Assembly collected 1.8 billion cediss as revenue from its traditional sources as against the 1.7 billion cedis target.

The amount represented 101.6 percent of performance, Mr Richard Aboagye, the District Chief Executive for Amansie East announced at Bekwai on Thursday.

Addressing the first meeting of the third session of the assembly he said, generating enough revenue from internal sources to finance both current and capital expenditure had been the priority of the assembly's annual programme of activities.

Performance Mr. Aboagye said, had, however, not been the best over the years, pointing out that the assembly's poor performance in 2001, forced it to be more aggressive in its revenue mobilisation, effort the following year.

He said, the strategies adopted by the assembly to maximise revenue generation paid off and enabled the assembly's revenue generation to improve.

Mr Aboagye said the assembly's strategy in this year's revenue mobilisation, is to use the sub-district structures and has therefore, ceded about 60 percent of its revenue generation to the town and area councils.

The strategy he said, had become necessary because of the grossly inadequate number of permanent revenue collectors pointing out that currently there were only 20 permanent revenue collectors for the over 600 settlements in the district.

He said, the assembly would encourage the town and area councils to engage more commission collectors to help in the collection of revenue in their areas.

"Again, recognised and registered trade associations like the Tailors and Dressmakers Associations, Drinking Barkeepers Association and others would be brought on board to collect revenue from their members for the assembly."

Mr Aboagye announced that, the assembly's share of the common fund for last year totalled 3.5 billion cedis, while it received 392.7 million cedis from the Poverty Alleviation Fund. He noted that this year promises to be a hectic one, beginning with the voters registration exercise in March to be followed by the December poll and said it was the determination of government to ensure peaceful elections.