Tema, Aug. 29, GNA - The Tema Municipal Assembly has mobilised total revenue of 30.44 billion cedis as at the end of June this year, representing 54.6 percent of the estimated 55.75 billion cedis budget for the year.

This was disclosed by Mr David Quaye Annang, the Tema Municipal Chief Executive in his sessional address at the Assembly's third ordinary meeting of the Fourth session on Tuesday. This amount includes the fourth quarter Common Fund allocation of 2,253,735,367 cedis for the year and the MP's allocations of the common fund.

Mr Annang said total provisional internally generated revenue as of June 30 was 14.896 billion cedis, representing 44.3 percent of budget figure of 33.8 billion cedis.

The shortfall, according to him, was mainly due late distribution of bills.

He said in order to improve efficiency in the assembly's revenue mobilization drive, strategies were being employed. This include training of revenue officers and commission collectors on TMA's development programmes and projects so that they would be better informed.

Management is also negotiating with large firms and establishments on terms of payment of fees and rates where they express difficulty in settling their total bills at a go.

The Chief Executive further stated that areas of coverage of Sub-offices were being properly demarcated so as to enhance effective monitoring and evaluation of revenue collectors and also assess potentials of those areas.

To this end a task force comprising revenue officers and city guards will be formed to identify all untapped revenue areas to enable TMA spread the tax net to cover them.

On sanitation and waste management, Mr Annang said the assembly has engaged the services of contractors who operate in two modes - those who lift the communal containers and are paid according to the quality they lift and discharged at the land field site, and those who operate on franchise in the middle and high-income areas. He said treatment and safe disposal of liquid waste still posed a major challenge to TMA, although a total of 300 metres of defective sewer lines were replaced.

Out of 720 cases of choked sewer lines reported, 698 were remedied. The Chief Executive said it has registered about 65,000 applicants of the health insurance scheme and that nearly 50,000 have received their cards.

Mr Annang stated that maternal mortality fell to 11 per 1000 births within the first five months of the year compared to 25 per 1,000 births within the some period in 2005. He said reports indicated that HIV/AIDS prevalence was still high and that 147 cases were recorded at public health institutions in the municipality during the period under review. The Tema Municipality is implementing the school-feeding programme in six pioneering schools.

Touching on community water and sanitation projects, the Municipal Chief Executive said that TMA is ever conscious of the need to keep an acceptable balance in the spread of development projects in urban and rural communities.

Subsequently, feasibility studies for small town water supply to Zenu cluster of communities, Zenu township, Katamanso, Kubekro number one and two have been completed. The possibility of extending the Oyibi area rural pipe water supply to Mensah Bar and New saasabi has also been considered. 29 Aug. 06