Ahanta West Assembly to engage services of contract revenue collectors

Agona-Nkwanta (W/R) Oct. 21,GNA- The revenue collectors of the Ahanta West District Assembly in the Western Region, would be replaced with contract revenue collectors to arrest the dwindling fortunes of the Assembly.

Four the past four years the Assembly, had recorded poor revenue generation and this had attracted a query from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

Mr. Peter W. Amenu-Kpornyo, the District Coordinating Director, made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Agona Nkwanta on Wednesday.

He said Assembly's revenue target between January and May 2004 was 37,812,170 cedis but only 19,950,000 cedis was collected. Mr. Amenu-Kpornyo said personnel from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) were invited by the Assembly to carry out investigations on its revenue generation activities.

He said the action was necessitated when the Presiding Member of the Assembly once spotted a revenue collector issuing an undervalued and invalid ticket to some traders at the Agona-Nkwanta market. He alleged that some traders also connived with revenue collectors to cheat the Assembly.

Mr. Kwesi Biney, the District Chief Executive, also expressed concern about the continual decline in revenue generation by the Assembly. He said seven students engaged by the Assembly to collect revenue from August 23rd to September 30, this year realised 22,891,500 cedis. Mr. Biney said this was an indication that some of the revenue collectors were not declaring all the monies they collected.