Bongo District Assembly to increase IGF

Bongo (UE), Nov 21, GNA - The Bongo District Assembly in the Upper East Region for more than three years now had not been able to meet its set target of internal revenue mobilization.

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Mr. Clement Akugre who made this known during the Assembly's second meeting held in Bongo on Friday said the Assembly projected to rake in 69,981.48 Ghana cedis as Internal Generated Revenue(IGR) for 2009 but only generated 46,863.98 Ghana cedis, representing 66.97 per cent.

He said in 2008, the assembly generated 46,714.90 Ghana cedis out of projected figure of 66,770.00 Ghana cedis, representing 69.96 per cent," which was very appalling".

He noted that to combat the problem, the Assembly had recruited revenue collectors who would be trained to collect tax in the District. He noted that receipts books had also been printed and would be released for the newly recruited revenue collectors soon and said the assembly would deal drastically with any tax collector caught embezzling the assembly's fund.

Mr. Akugre said the assembly would also consider expanding the tax net in the District and to increase property rates if possible and appealed to the assembly members to look for other innovative ways to boost internal revenue mobilization. The DCE announced that having passed the District Development Fund test introduced by some donor countries to asses and monitor the good performance of good governance of the Municipal and District Assemblies in 2006, the Assembly received 446,496.57 Ghana cedis as the first trench of a reward of 715,099.04 Ghana cedis.

He said the money which was solely earmarked for investment of community projects and capacity building of staff of the assembly and other departments in the District. According to him, the assembly would use the fund to roll out projects including schools, health centres, school furniture, electricity among others.

He noted that the fund would help relieve the pressure on the District Assembly Common Fund and enable the Assembly meet other developmental needs. The DCE expressed concern about the 177 Junior High School students in the District who qualified but could not get placements in Senior High Schools as a result of the computerization of placements and said though the issue was a nationwide problem, the District Assembly and the District Education Directorate was working hard to get them placed in schools in the Region.

Mr. Akugre said with the introduction of the School Feeding Programme and the Capitation Grant, the number of enrolment in schools had increased significantly putting pressure on the exiting school infrastructure and said the Assembly was building more schools to absorb the excesses. He mentioned that the contract on the Bolgatanga -Bongo Road had been abrogated and repackaged for re-award and said the District would also benefit from a steel bridge that would be constructed upstream to link Balungu and surroundings villages to boost economic activities. He indicated that the Bongo Small Town Supply and Sanitation Project which was ongoing would soon be completed and said under sanitation, five schools in the District were benefiting from institutional latrines. He said the Assembly had also sponsored a lot of students in tertiary institutions including nursing and teacher training colleges and said the Assembly was overburdened on how to sponsor majority of students and appealed to parents to know that the assembly was to only support students and not bound to sponsor them 21 Nov.09