Don’t connive with revenue collectors – Agona East DCE

Dennis Armah-Frempong, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Agona East has cautioned market women and private business operators in the district to refrain from conniving with revenue collectors to dupe the Assembly.

He said some corrupt revenue officers colluded with traders and denied the Assembly the needed internally generated funds (IGF), which could be used to undertake development projects and support social services.

The DCE gave the caution when he addressed the inauguration of the Agona Nsaba Queenmothers Foundation and a Teenage Drop-out Centre at Nsaba. The Center was instituted to support girl-child education and assist teen mothers to learn trades in order to become responsible adults in future.

Mr. Armah-Frempong said the Assembly’s financial position was low and therefore needed to increase its revenue collection base in order to fulfil its mandate to the people of the district.

He appealed to the market women, traders and other private business operators in the district to honour their tax obligations and stop negative practices that will enrich the pockets of individual revenue collectors and deny the Assembly revenue.

Mr. Armah-Frempong stated that the District Assembly’s Common Fund had its own guidelines which specified how disbursement should be undertaken projects and therefore could not be used to support social foundation programmes.

That is why the IGF should be well generated to support such interventions, he added.

The DCE assured Queens that the Assembly would continue to offer assistance to their Foundation to help realise its aims and objectives for the benefit of more girls in the district.

The Assembly, he noted was given scholarships to many tertiary students in nursing training, Technical Universities and traditional Universities to enable them to attain higher education. Nana Adjoa Nkansah Aduam II, Queenmother of Nsaba Traditional Area said the centre was built with assistance from foreign donors for girls that dropped out of school to learn trades that would make them self-reliant.

The Foundation has embarked on series of programmes to educate teenage school girls to reduce pregnancy cases among them in the District and will continue to mobilise girls and offer them advice to study hard and refrain from premarital sex.

He commended Nsaba citizens that assisted the foundation both materially and financially since its inception and appealed to donors to offer more support for it to realise it aims and objectives.