A charted Accountant and internal auditor of the Ho municipal Assembly in the Volta Region, Abdulai Abdul Gafaru has urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the country to pay special attention to their revenue unit.
He said resourcing revenue unit will help the assemblies meet their Internal Generated Fund (IGF) targets which most assemblies are not meeting. “You go to some assemblies and the conditions of revenue unit is pathetic, they forget that it’s the engine of the assembly,’’ the charted accountant lamented.
Mr Gafaru also appealed to assemblies to scrutinize people they engaged as their revenue collectors to prevent continued revenue leakages which are major challenges for most assemblies in Ghana.
The chartered accountant stated this in Sunyani when he took Media Network for Social Accountability whose members are drawn from Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Brong Ahafo Regions through Political and Fiscal decentralization in Ghana.
The Network was formed by the Social Accountability Unit of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to help in the implementation of Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability ( SPEFA) project.
He disclosed that some revenue collectors in some assemblies in Ghana engage in barter trade with traders which derail revenue mobilization efforts backwards. Mr Gafaru was not also happy about the effectiveness of Audit Report Implementation Committee (ARIC) in most assemblies in Ghana saying some chairpersons of ARIC who are presiding members (PMs) are not even aware of it.
This, he said, is dangerous in the local governance process and urged assembly members to ensure that ARIC works properly.
ARIC meetings, he said, are crucial in the assembly's work. Mr Gafaru described as suicidal for any assembly’s Presiding Member to get too much closer to the MCE or DCE because ARIC report could be compromised.
The chartered accountant has also proposed reshuffling of MMDCEs like the regional ministers to areas they have little or no relations.
According to him, most MMDAs fail to take tough decisions that will improve revenue base because of their acquaintance with the people and operators of businesses. On last year’s street naming and property address system exercise; the chartered accountant described it as fiasco.
He explained that the right procedures were not followed in most of the assemblies who claimed they have named their streets.
Ho municipal, he said, refused to hastily carry out the exercise because it needed to follow laydown procedures and to do the right thing. The street naming and property address system exercise purposely was among other things to help district assemblies improve upon their revenue mobilization but not ceremonial.
Categories: