Regional News of Friday, 29 June 2007

Source: GNA

Awutu-Effutu-Senya Assembly exceeds revenue target in 2006

Winneba (C/R) June 29 GNA-The Awutu-Effutu-Senya District Assembly (AESDA) exceeded its Internal Revenue Generation target last year by eighty-six percent (86 percent) due to prudent policies measure put in place by the Assembly.

Out of 1.533 billion cedis revenue estimated, the assembly collected 2.268 as at December 2006, making the Assembly the first in revenue generation in the Central Region. The District Chief Executive, Mr. Solomon Abbam Quaye said this at the first Session of the Assembly at Winneba. According to the Mr. Abbam-Quaye; "that remarkable achievement is attributed to the hard work of the Revenue Superintendent and Task Force members who intensified their monitoring and supervisory in the latter part of the year."

He said the Assembly has decided to cut down expenditure and invest more in the provision of social infrastructure so that rate payer could reap the benefits of their taxes.

He said there is more room for improvement in revenue generation and stressed the need for overhauling the revenue generation machinery to make it more effective and efficient.

"To this end, measures have been put in place to achieve the objective of the assembly".

The measures include, training and motivating collectors to give of their best, education for the public to honour their tax obligations and awards for hard working sub-structures and drastic reduction in recurrent expenditure.

Mr. Abbam-Quaye, in this regard urged assembly members and other stakeholders to put in their maximum efforts to help improve revenue generation for the assembly in the years ahead. He said provision has been made in the Supplementary Budget for the completion of the first phase of the office complex. According to the DCE, most communities have not been able to contribute their parts of DANIDA and EU funding projects and this had retarded their progress.

He told the Assembly Members; "as community leaders it is our responsibility to organize and mobilize them to contribute their quota which is in the form of local materials, including sand, water and stone towards the execution of the projects."