Jirapa District Assembly yet to receive common fund

Jirapa (U/W), April 27, GNA - The Jirapa District Assembly has not yet receive its share of the third quarter of the District Assembly Common Fund for last year, Mr. Bernard K. Puozuing, the Jirapa District Chief Executive, has said.

He said the assembly's share of the third quarter of the fund is still outstanding and there are indications that it may not come at all. Mr. Puozuing was addressing members of the Jirapa District District Assembly at its first ordinary meeting at Jirapa on Monday. He said the fourth quarter of the assembly's share of the fund had been received some two weeks ago.

He said out of a total allocation of 303,027.02 Ghana cedis, only 137,357.28 Ghana Cedis was received and the rest consumed by deductions. He said the continuous reduction of the size of the common fund, which displaces most assemblies' budgets, calls for a concerted effort to reverse the trend.

Mr. Puozuing said that practice, if allowed to continue, would suffocate most assemblies to death. He gave the assurance that the assembly would continued to pay off debts that were outstanding in the name of the assembly as the funds trickle in. He said the assembly had been able to generate 20,318.37 Ghana cedis between January and March through local sources. The assembly had also devolved its revenue collection to Area Councils and 50 per cent of money collected is given to the councils for development projects.

On the water situation, Mr. Puozuing said the Jirapa town water system was failing and needed to be expanded to cater for the ever increasing population of the town. He said the assembly had been able to acquire 230 acres of land for the proposed government plantation projects in the area. 27 April 10