Monitoring Is Poor In Assemblies Due To Lack Of Database For Revenue

Many Assemblies across the country do not have reliable revenue database and those that do were not always able to maintain them properly to aid effective revenue mobilization, Dr Nana Ato Arthur, Head of the Local Government Service, has said.

He stated that effective and efficient revenue generation, mobilization and monitoring were hugely dependant on up-to-date timely information regarding the properties and businesses among other sources of revenue upon which taxes were levied.

That, he observed was paramount in assisting Assemblies to do proper forecasting, billing, collection and maximising the revenues due them to support economic, social and infrastructural development.

Dr Ato Arthur was speaking at the launch of a revenue generation programme dubbed "Tax Revenue for Economic Enhancement (TREE)" held at Cape Coast on Wednesday.

The four-year project spanning from 2017-2021 sought to stimulate performance of the Assemblies in generating internal revenue (IGF) for sustainable development.

The launch of the TREE programme brought together budget officers, revenue officers, officials of the Ministry of Finance, financial analysts, traditional leaders and 32 selected MMDCEs from the Central, Ashanti, and Western Regions.

It also sought to increase improvements in IGF through enhanced capacity building of MMDAs to communicate effectively with citizens, close tax gaps, legal capacity, IT solutions and participatory planning processes to improve the delivery of basic services to citizens.

Through the project, beneficiary Assemblies would benefit from enhanced revenue collection through reliable, convenient and efficient tax management software to make revenue mobilization, improve willingness, and motivate the people to pay taxes.

Dr Ato Arthur also discouraged the over reliance of assemblies on District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) as the only source of revenue for development and described that situation as "worrying" because it impeded development efforts.

"Currently, IGF are the only funds that MMDAs have total control over because the Common Fund (CF) and funds from donor partners targets specific development projects and therefore cannot be used for recurrent expenditures."

Therefore, he stated that the ability for MMDAs to maintain new and existing infrastructure will become increasingly difficult if they were unable to generate adequate funds from their own activities.

He urged the MMDAs to redouble the revenue mobilization process to enable them rake in more revenue and make them autonomous to deepen fiscal decentralisation to better allocate resources to all regardless of geographical location or economic circumstances.

The Head of the Local Government Service reminded them of Government's vision to transform Ghana's economy, saying it was imperative for MMDAs to up their revenue generation efforts to keep up with the vibrant mission of industrialising the country and develop Ghana beyond aid.

To achieve that noble feat, he outlined the need to continually build the capacity of MMDAs to re-communicate the vision with taxpayers, mobilization processes and modernized IT solutions for the desired results.

Mr Kwasi Boateng Adjei, the Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) encouraged MMDCAs to scale-up revenue mobilization efforts to ease the pace of development in their areas of jurisdiction.

He said the Local Government Act 2016, Act 936, section 144, empowered Assemblies to charge approved fees and rates for facilities and businesses in their districts to cushion their development efforts.