SIAKON MEDIA

Wa, April 15, GNA - District Assemblies in the Upper West Region have been asked to justify revenue expenditures to give meaning to transparency and accountability.

That would stimulate and encourage the people to voluntarily pay their taxes without the slightest contemplation, Mr. Mahmud Khalid, Upper West Regional Minister has said.

He said the awareness and consciousness level of the people had increased significantly and that they have the legitimate right to demand evidence of their patriotic response to tax payment.

Mr. Khalid said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Kale Cezar, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister at the first ordinary session of the Wa Municipal Assembly held in Wa on Wednesday.

"District Assemblies owe it a duty to show evidence of the investment of the people's money.

"It is therefore a wakeup call to all of them to commit substantial amount of their internally generated funds into projects rather than recurrent expenditures to satisfy the benefit principles associated with tax collection", Mr. Khalid explained.

Mr. Khalid urged the assemblies to overhaul their revenue collection machinery and adopt modern revenue mobilisation approaches, to enable them to generate more money for development projects to complement external and central government support.

He called on members of the Wa Municipal Assembly to take advantage of increasing spate of urbanization and development of physical structures in the municipality to enhance its revenue base.

He urged the assembly to discuss the potentials in property rates generation and also examine the prospects of revaluation of all properties, with the view to establishing a reliable, credible and sustainable data base for the revenue maximization.

Mr. Khalid expressed concern about the increasing level of indiscipline in development of physical structures in the Wa Municipality and advised members of the assembly to see that as a development challenge, which needed to be addressed.

The Regional Minister was also unhappy about the rising disregard for the provision of toilet facilities in the newly constructed residential apartments in Wa.

He said the practice has the potential of undermining the assembly's efforts at ensuring sanitation discipline, and called on developers not to compromise the hygiene and sanitation components of all physical structures.

GNA

District Assemblies Act to be Reviewed

Ajumako (C/R), May 3, GNA — The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Evils Afriyie Ankrah, at the weekend urged Assembly members to look at issues rationally and logically instead of viewing them with partisan lenses.

He said the District Assemblies were originally meant to operate on non-partisan basis, with issues handled dispassionately "but today we cannot act as ostriches to pretend that there is no party affiliation in the Assemblies".

Mr Ankrah said these when he addressed the fourth session of the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District Assembly at Ajumako in the Central Region.

He said while the Assembly system had worked well, certain issues had come up strong as defects of the concept.

Another issue which confronts participatory democracy at the grassroots is the involvement of chiefs, he observed.

"Traditional authorities have been conspicuously left out in the Assembly concept even though they are perceived to be major stakeholder at the local level".

He said it was as a result of such defects that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development initiated the process of reviewing the Local Government Act, ACT 462, which the District Assemblies had been operating since 1993.

Mr Ankrah said the committee had done consultations throughout the country, and received memoranda from various stakeholders.

"It is expected that by the time the review is over some of these grey areas in the District Assembly concept would be addressed and the rough edges would be smoothened so that participation would be enhanced," Mr Ankrah said.

He said the current Assembly members would complete their term of office by the end of august 2010 and, therefore, urged all District Chief Executives (DCEs) to begin to think about the issue of ex-gratia to Assembly members so that they are not overtaken by events.

The Deputy Minister appealed to Assembly Members to help address some of the chieftaincy disputes in their respective areas since the trend retarded progress and cost government millions of Ghana Cedis in peacekeeping efforts.

He also urged them to be vigilant in performing their monitoring and oversight roles to ensure efficient use of the assembly's resources.

The DCE for the area, Mr. Peter Light Koomson, said as part of government Policy to create employment for the youth through an afforestation programme, the Assembly was collaborating with the chiefs and people of the district and the forestry Commission to acquire large plots of land for the programme.

GNA