The Wa Municipal Assembly has generated 6,721,295.43 Ghana cedis out of 8,957,452.00 Ghana cedis it budgeted for the year, representing 75.03 per cent.
The Assembly got 583,466.88 Ghana cedis from its own internally generated fund out of the 604,560.00 Ghana cedis it targeted, representing 96 per cent budgeted for the year.
Mr. Issahaku Nuhu-Putiaha, the Wa Municipal Chief Executive, was explaining to members of the Busa Community in the Wa Municipality the revenue generation and expenditure pattern of the assembly at a community forum.
The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in collaboration with Radio Upper West and Media Foundation for West Africa organised the forum.
He said educating the people about revenue and the areas of expenditure would help enhance the people’s confidence in the assembly, which would motivate them to play their complementary roles effectively for the accelerated development of the municipality.
He mentioned the District Assemblies Common Fund, District Development Fund, the Urban Development Grant (yet to befit), the Internally Generated Funds and other donor support funds as the sources of revenue for the assembly.
Mr. Nuhu-Putiaha said development hinged on the availability of resources and that the assembly had always tried to make judicious use of the little resources that came its way.
He said apart from the internally generated revenue which district assemblies had some level of control; they did not have control over the releases of the rest of the revenue.
“This is a serious challenge to their development efforts because the rest of revenue sources, which form greater percent of revenue meant for capital investment, are outside the control of the assemblies”, said Mr. Nuhu-Putiaha.
He said it was for that reason the assembly was making every effort to maximise the locally generated revenue.
Efforts were also being made to plug the leakages of the internally generated revenue.
Mr. Yaagi John Bosco, Deputy Regional Director of National Commission for Civic Education, said the unwillingness of the people to pay taxes was because they did not understand that tax payment was an obligation.
