Revenue Agencies Sign Charter

The Government's Attitudinal Change Initiative aimed at fast-tracking service delivery in the public sector, took another dimension with the signing of the “2nd Charter” by five public sector agencies in Accra on Wednesday.

Heads of the Customs Exercise and Preventive Service (CEPS), Controller and Accountant General's Department, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Driver and Vehicular Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Registrar General's Department signed the charter on behalf of their outfits.

In this vein, a Central Monitoring Unit has been established at the Office of the President, where the public may lodge complaints when the signatories fail to deliver on the benchmarks they have set in the various documents.

The Presidency has also put in place a monitoring and evaluation mechanism which will reward and sanction organizations to ensure that the initiative does not become a mirage.

Before the signing ceremony, Mrs. Chinery Hesse, Chief Advisor to the President, tasked the various departments to adhere to the benchmarks and time-lines they have set in the charter in order to win and sustain public trust.

“The adherence to these documents are important for government business because it would enhance the nation's economic growth,” she said, adding, “I am happy that all the five departments are revenue collection agencies.”

She thus urged the public to be the watchdogs of the initiative and tasked the various agencies to implement “change programs” to enhance the proper functioning of their “Client Service Units (CSU)” which in the end would accelerate the governments Golden Age of Business concept.

The Minister of Public Sector Reform, Mr. Samuel Owusu Agyei noted, “The new charter does not introduce more rules and centralized processes or micro-managing service delivery but involves creating a framework for the delivery of public services, which puts citizens and customers first and enable them to hold public servants to account for the service they receive within stipulated time-frames.”

He added that his outfit had been providing guidance, support and facilitation to departments and agencies in the country to reactivate their CSU's and enhance quality service delivery.

The New Charter was born on October 24 this year, with the land sector agencies having theirs launched and signed by President John Agyekum Kufuor.

By Patrick Baidoo