Tema, Nov 3, GNA - The Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) as at the end of June this year, collected 11.5 billion cedis as revenue out of the approved budgeted figure of 28.7 billion cedis.

This is made up of 4.7 billion cedis from internally generated funds, 3.5 billion cedis from grants and 3.2 billion cedis from the Common Fund.

Mr Samuel Evans Asong Narh, Tema Municipal Chief Executive who said this at the 2nd ordinary general meeting of TMA at the weekend, said the late approval of the fee fixing resolution and revised rates imposed by the assembly accounted for the low revenue mobilisation during the first half of the year.

He said the assembly continued to exercise prudence in the management of its resources and some measures had been taken to strengthen internal control on revenue.

These included computerisation of billing systems, establishment of a revenue taskforce and data collection on revenue items such as stores at community one and Ashaiman markets

On collection of property rates Mr Narh said the executive committee had put in some measures such as the zoning of the municipality into three, hiring of announcement vans for each zone and press publications to set up effective dissemination of information to rate payers.

Mr Samuel Aryee, Municipal Finance Officer, said to enable the assembly collect revenue from rural areas, the assembly had started public education and expected the zonal councils to get involved.

He said at Kpone traders were not complying with the fees revenue collectors were charging and plans were advanced to educate them on the payment of the fees.