Birim South District assembly holds second ordinary meeting

Akim Swedru, July 24, GNA - The Birim South District Assembly in the Eastern Region collected 46,099.70 Ghana cedis as internally generated revenue from January 1 through May 30. Nana Bafour Mensah Takyi, District Chief Executive, said this at a two-day second ordinary meeting of the assembly at Akim Swedru on Tuesday.

He said in order to improve revenue collection there was the need to put in place measures including the erecting of new revenue barriers, provision of identity cards for revenue collectors and recruitment of additional commission collectors to augment revenue generation. Nana Takyi said the district assembly had not received any common fund allocation for 2009, but stated that the fourth quarter allocation of 164,938.15 Ghana cedis for 2008 was received in May this year. He pointed out that the Assembly had during the period, received 19,585.10 Ghana Cedis as grant from the European Union Micro Project for its income generation programme, and used it to procure oil processing mills for women's groups at Nyankomase and Anamase both in the district. On the national school feeding programme, the DCE announced that the assembly had so far received 29,471 Ghana Cedis as feeding grants for schools under the programme.

Nana Takyi cited the fact that the Birim South District was one of the newly created districts and was, therefore, confronted with problems including logistics, National Health Insurance Scheme registration, Development projects, security and the lack of communal spirit. He appealed to the staff of the district administration, assembly members and heads of departments to work vigorously so as to make the district a better place to live. Mr. Robert Amoah, Presiding Member for the assembly, led the members during open forum to discuss the wanton destruction of the forest by chainsaw operators who fell timber logs indiscriminately, and the destruction of cocoa farms. Other matters deliberated upon were updating of sub-committee membership, discussion and approval of 2009 fee fixing resolution, and the approval and ratification of executive committee reports.