From Ernest Best Anane
The Amansie District Assembly has approved the 2015 composite budget with the assurance that it will introduce very innovative ways of expanding the tax base to include other items that hitherto were not collected.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Amansie West, Mr. Alex Kwame Bonsu, who disclosed this at an assembly meeting recently, said plans were under way to recruit more revenue collectors in the various electoral areas, or revenue stations to improve the revenue base.
He said the objective is to raise more local revenue to respond to the call on the assemblies to utilise not less than 30% of their internally generated funds (IGF) on development projects.
On the straightening of sub-district structures for effective decentralization, he said it is their collective responsibility to build, strengthen and financially empower their district sub-structures to enable them function effectively, in line with the decentralisation concept, stressing: “Our success as an assembly largely depends on the functioning of our Area Council and Unit Committees”.
He said, for a start, they have to post energetic National Service personnel to all the area councils to serve as secretaries who will assist in the day to day administrative duties, and appealed to all assembly members and opinion leaders in the various communities to give the necessary support to personnel posted to their areas in order to achieve the set objectives of the assemblies.