Shama District Assembly predicts increase in revenue this year

The Shama District Assembly in the Western Region has predicted an increase in revenue generation in the year 2021.

This, according to the authority, is because an initiative embarked on to collect tolls during the night has begun yielding results, according to the District Chief Executive.

The DCE, Joseph Amoah, revealed this in an interview with host of Onua TV’s Maakye, Kwame Tutu on Thursday, April 29.

“He said “our revenue target for the year 2021, we increased by 100% because we need to improve our collection and it will help and others must do the same. It will help in MMDAs because I know some are also doing it and so those who are not doing it must emulate it”.

The DCE added, “we have been highly impressed and we should start to complement that of the central government funds”.

Mr. Amoah explained that “life is active in some places in the District so we are doing a pilot project on the revenue collection and it is helping”.

“We started last Friday. We have weekly markets in some of the markets where people from all over come to trade. The daily toll we collect is a bit higher than the night. The night gives more money than the day”.

The DCE said the Assembly selected some communities for the pilot, educated them on the need to pay the toll and the people understood.

“The night traders pay the tolls depending on type of business…we started with GHC1.00 and GHC2.00 but the day tolls range from GHC2.00 to GHC20.00”.

Commenting on the security for the Assembly staff who would work in the night, the DCE said “we have not had any incident of attack but we are putting measures in place. We use our internal guards to help us where we anticipate resistant”.

Asked how the Assembly would ensure that the tolls would not be diverted since it would be collected at night, Mr. Amoah noted that “we have spoken to them on the collection diversion and we take notice of the received books”.

He explained that “we have plans to go behind them and find out if they are doing what we told them to do because we need to identify the loopholes in the revenue collection”.