An advisory committee has been inaugurated in the Savelugu/Nanton Municipal Assembly to help in the implementation of Ghana Internally Generated Funds and Technical Support project (GIGFTS). The committee chaired by the Municipal Chief Executive, Hon. Alhassan Abdulai Red with support from coordinating director and finance department.
The committee also has representative of the paramount chief of Savelugu traditional area as well as religious leaders and some assembly members.
The inauguration of the committee forms part efforts by government and governance organizations to sensitize the citizenry on the need to pay property rates to enable the assemblies provide basic social amenities in the communities.
GIGFITS aim is to help assemblies generate more funds through effective use of property tax and business licenses. Savelugu municipality, Sunyani and Hohoe municipalities are the only municipalities selected in the country for the pilot project.
The two year project will be supported by Amplify Governance, with funding from the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Development and International Trade formerly CIDA. Under the project, streets will be named and houses are given numbers, each house will be evaluated by the land evaluation division in a mass evaluation exercises to determine its ratable value.
To ensure transparency and prevent revenue linkages, property tax will not collected by the assembly’s revenue collectors but through officers of rural banks in the project beneficiary municipalities.
The Revenue Generation Coordinator of Amplify Governance, Madam Lindsay Bailey said the organization aimed was to make a better government system for the people. According to her, they have identified four key focus areas that will help governance system to improve the livelihood of the people in Savelugu/Nanton.
They first focus area was citizen engagement and people in Savelugu may have been involved with the voices that matters in project.
The second focus area was in leadership, leadership for the members of the government so that they can do a better job leading to the people in their communities.
Another area Lindsay Bailey mentioned was government management and collection; government in making decision that based on politics, should rather based on data for example how much wealth a particular assembly has.
The fourth area is internal generating fund which is ways the assemblies they make monies from the area and one of the reasons why amplify governance is focusing on internal generating fund is that, they believe when people are paying money to the assembly rather than the assembly receiving money from the central government or NGOs people are more likely to be engage and to take action encouraging the assembly to do what they want.
She explained that if citizens know is their money, they will be more concern as to how the money is being spent. Having people pay their taxes Lindsay Bailey noted will encourage them to be engage and to look at how the money is going.
Explaining reasons why they selected property tax, the revenue generation coordinator said property tax is that a rich people have buildings more than the poor man and also it is very challenging to move a property especially house from one location to another.
Madam Lindsay added that, the rural banks agents will go round and collect the money because they have been trained by the bank and they are countable to the banks. This, she said will prevent the money from going into the individuals pockets.
Another way of payment of property tax is through mobile money system introduced by the various communication networks such as MTN, TIGO and VODAFONE. The Savelugu/Nanton municipal coordinating director, Issaka Braimah Basintale who inaugurated the committee on behalf the MCE charged committee members show keen interest to ensure successful implementation of the project.
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