BEREKUM WEST DISTRICT ASSEMBLY INTENSIFIES REVENUE MOBILIZATION
On Monday, 6th day of February, 2023, the District’s Budget Committee held a meeting at the Assembly Conference Hall to discuss the Financial Performance of the Assembly as at 31st December, 2022 and also to suggest measures to improve revenue mobilization. The Committee believes the meeting will afford the Assembly to identify the lapses and strengths that account for the revenue performance of the Assembly whiles putting in measures to increase the Internal Generated Fund.
At the meeting, Mr. Maxwell Sixtus Aborigo, the Assistant Director I who represented the District Coordinating Director in his opening address noted that, most of the national or government revenue sources that comes to the district are with restrictions and therefore if the Assembly would want to embark on more developmental activities, there is the need for the Assembly to improve in revenue mobilization at the local level to boost the Internal Generated Fund (IGF).
The District Budget Officer, Mrs. Regina Nketia who chaired the Budget Committee meeting also took all the Heads of Departments who were present through the revenue performance of the Assembly for the year, 2022. In her presentation, she emphasized that, although the District Assembly actualized 83.37% of the budgeted revenue for 2022, there is still more room for improvement since there is much work to be done for a young district like Berekum West District Assembly which has many deprived communities within.
Most members of the committee were concerned about the low performance of the Revenue Collectors and therefore suggested measures to implement and increase the revenue collection. Amongst those suggestions were; paying revenue collectors on commission, setting targets for revenue collectors, mounting barriers at community boarders to monitor farmers and collect revenue from those who transport products such tomato, cashew and other crops from the Berekum West District to other districts.
The Acting District Information Officer also appealed to the committee to resource the department with an Information Van to aid the office to embark on public education on payment of operational fees for the district. The department has also secured an airtime at a local Radio station, Adikanfo FM to educate the district on Revenue Collection. The Committee has also tasked the Budget Officer, the Information Officer and Mr. Sarkodie Adu of the Accounts department to join a staff each from the Internal Audit department and the Central Administration to embark on a mass revenue collection within the district. The team started this mobilization on Tuesday, 7th February, 2023 at Jinijini, the capital of the district. The mass collection is to afford the assembly to familiarize themselves with the defaulters in the district, the challenges the revenue collectors are facing as well as the reasons for such low revenue mobilization. The exercise which shall be continued once every month will intensify revenue mobilization for Berekum West District Assembly
Gideon Kwarfo