The Municipal Chief Executive for the Kwahu South Municipality, Hon. Emmanuel Attah Ofori Snr. has stated that internally generated fund is a contributing factor to developmental projects in every District, Municipal or Metropolitan Assembly.
Speaking with Kwame Koranteng on Anɔpa Dawuro on Republic Fm, the Kwahu South MCE said the internal revenue the assembly derives from the operating businesses aren’t enough to spearhead the projects of the assembly.
According to the MCE, the Kwahu South Municipality which used to be a District has now been granted the Municipality status and hence, expenditure of the assembly has gone up. He noted that, the municipal status assessment was started in 2013.
He revealed that per the local government act and the local government system, some prospects are taken into consideration to lift a district to a Municipality.
Among some of the things he mentioned are security, population, sanitation, community engagement and infrastructure.
Hon. Atta Ofori Snr. urged the people of Kwahu South to tender their tax returns in order to embark on projects to ease challenges confronting the Municipality.
“Now we are a Municipal. Our spending will go up, but then the revenue is less than our expenditure. Now we have urban roads office, we have about three or four departments in addition to the existing once so there are challenges. Nananom, drivers, business owners and traders have a responsibility to help us ensure that we maintain the Municipality status. Our budget for the year 2021 was about 923,000 but we have about 64% as of September and so we can’t execute all our developmental projects” he added.
Touching on some of the major projects before him, he reiterated that, one of the first steps is to shoot up is revenue mobilization for the Kwahu South.
According to him, the tax net base was a little over 80,000 plus population.
“Looking at how big the Kwahu South Municipality is, one of my challenges was about raising the revenue mobilization, because our initial revenue collection was very poor “ he told Kwame Koranteng.
Hon. Emmanuel Attah Ofori Snr. revealed that, the assembly has been able to value all properties in the municipality and that, residents must be able to abide by these terms and tender their taxations. He contended that the Assembly has been able to shoot up its revenue mobilization from 45 – 49 to 91% after he took office.
“We are still in the process of sensitizing the people in tax returns. Our internally generated fund was about 45-49% when I assume office but now, we have a tax returns of about 91% as of 2020.” He added.
He further stressed that, the district, now Municipality has about 12 departments that, all these departments rely on the assembly with education and security being the major relying on the assembly.