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Assembly members at the Asokwa Municipality are requesting that the Local Government Ministry reconsider its decision to outsource the daily revenue collection for their organization to a third party.
Elliot Fosu Barnor, the Assembly’s Presiding Member (PM), told the media during an emergency meeting last Friday that the Assembly would resume the collection on its own in October.
This, he claimed, would entail their breakup with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and its designated collecting agency Digital City Solutions (DCS).
“It is true that MMDAs through their respective Chief Executives committed our Assemblies to the GRA partnership by signing an MOU but this contract has not helped us so we will collect the revenue ourselves in October since the Local Government Law back us up to do that”, the PM stated.
Background:
The Asokwa Assembly was able to raise about GHC 1,060,000.00 from January to July of 2022, according to the presiding member.
However, he pointed out that only $27,000.00 had been able to be collected and made available to the Assembly during the same period since the Digital City Solutions operating under the GRA took over this year.
The PM said that this sum was wholly unsatisfactory and insufficient to support the Assembly’s ability to carry out any significant development initiatives or projects in the Asokwa Municipality.
“How can you in the third quarter of the year give us 27, 000.00 as our share of the revenue since January to this time when we by ourselves were collecting fivefold of this amount”, the PM quizzed.
Earlier Walk Out:
Earlier in the day, 18 members of the Assembly asked the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Chief Akwannuasah Gyimah and the Municipal Coordinating Director (MCD), Samuel Owusu Mensah to excuse themselves from the meeting.
The Assembly Members argued that the two could not sit in a meeting that would amount to conflict of interests.
They noted the two had earlier signed the MOU between the Local Government and the GRA that mandated a third party to collect the revenue the Assembly was collecting by itself.
This, they mentioned made the MCE and MCD unfit to sit in the meeting called to discuss a new way to collect revenue that is due the Assembly.
Resolution:
Ending the meeting, the Assembly members passed a resolution to start the collection of revenue by itself from October.
Secondly they adopted the proposal by two members to set up a revenue task force at the Assembly to carry out the collection and pleaded with residents to take note and assist the staff when they come in the name of the Assembly to take taxes and tolls due it.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com/Michael Ofosu-Afriyie, Kumasi
