The MCE for Bolgatanga Municipality Rex Asanga has opined that the Municipality should not be generating less than 2 million GHC per year in Internally Generated Revenue (IGF). He said he expects that figure because of the many opportunities available to raise the money.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East, Mr. Asanga said as MCE, revenue generation is one of the areas he is committed to addressing adding that that birthed the Revenue Mobilisation Taskforce. He said a look at the Assembly finances makes one wonder whether enough revenue is not being collected or rather, revenue collected is dissipated on the blind side of the Assembly.
“We have IGF which is a problem. We have not generated that much. I do not know whether it is a question of we generating and the thing leaking or that many people are outside of the tax net. I believe that Bolga Municipal should not be generating less than 2 million GHC in a year,” explained.
He continued to say that the Municipality has a lot to achieve, the reason the Assembly has to up its game in revenue collection. “Children are still sitting on the floor, some people do not have classrooms. I asked the Municipal Education Director to give me a list of schools who don’t have classrooms with people sitting under trees and we got as many as 40 in our Municipality so we cannot relent in mobilizing revenue”.
Mr. Asaga explained that the over-reliance of the District Assembly Common Fund is impractical because of the delays attributed to the DACF. He explained that while the government has been able to pay some of the DACF owed the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly, the monies have gone into paying debts accumulated over the COVID-19 period.
He explained that while he hopes the Assembly will be able to start new projects and support communities as it ought to, the Assembly is rather retiring old debts before looking to start new projects.
A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith |Bolgatanga|Ghana
