Shai-Osudoku Assembly accused of collecting illegal revenues

Revenues the Shai-Osudoku District Assembly in the Greater Accra Region have been collecting from property owners are not backed by any bylaws.

Since the creation of the assembly, which was formerly called theDangme West District Assembly, millions of Ghana cedis had been collected from thousands of property owners; however, there are no proper developments in the district to show for the revenue that had been collected.

Realizing that the assembly was illegally collecting revenues, which had no regulatory rule from its people, Charles Ashalley Dzanie, the District Coordinating Director (DCD), began working hard to get the assembly bylaws; but he has shockingly been transferred from the assembly.

News of Charles Ashalley Dzanie’s transfer had been received with a sharp protest by a greater number of the Shai-Osudoku Assembly members, including some of the government’s appointees who had accused the District Chief Executive (DCE), Emmanuel OdoiLartey for masterminding Mr. Dzanie’s transfer.

Addressing a section of the press at Dodowa, Shai-Osudoku District capital, the angry assembly members called for the immediate reinstatement of Charles Dzanie, whom they described as the ‘eye’ of the district.

Patrick Cyril Lartey, Assembly member for Salem Electoral Area, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, established the fact that except the Shai-Osudoku District Hospital, which the government had built in the district, the area cannot pride itself of any major project initiated by assembly from its own resources.

“We are the assembly members and we want to ask our DCE what he has been using the revenues for. We want to use the media to get answers to our question since he openly told us that he is not accountable to us.”

He said, for instance, the assembly generated GH¢3,385,398 in 2014 but by June 2015, the assembly, which has no bylaws, could collect only GH¢934,663 from its revenue mobilization.

The DCE, following the decline in the revenue mobilsation, sacked the revenue mobilization staff for non-performance, the Salem Assemblyman indicated.

He said: “All the DCE is interested in is frivolous spending and extravagance, therefore, it is no wonder that a decision taken by the honourable assembly members, in 2014, for the purchase of a new vehicle for revenue mobilisation has not been honoured.”

Continuing, Patrick Cyril Lartey said the area cannot boast of one-kilometre motorable road, the performance of candidates in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) had been abysmal, with the district placing last in the 2015 BECE statistics for the Greater Accra Region (GAR).

Mr. Ashalley Dzanie, the transferred DCD, who wanted to ensure that all the revenue leakages had been transferred without any tangle reason.

The DCD, Patrick Lartey stated, was open with his dissatisfaction at the mismanagement and the deficiencies in the district, which had over the years been touted as one of the best in the GAR.

The angry assembly members said they would work against the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the district should the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Collins Dauda and the GAR Minister, Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, fail to immediately call back the ‘true eye of the Assembly’ -Charles Ashalley Dzanie.

When contacted, the DCE, Emmanuel Odoi Lartey refused to comment on the allegations made by the assembly members. He virtually snubbed this reporter who had gone to him in the company of a colleague journalist to hear his (DCE’s) side of the story.

However, the Presiding Member (PM) Benjamin Manyeh assured the press that he would study the assembly members’ petition and respond to it at the appropriate time.