Assembly members of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) have been admonished to be active participants in revenue mobilisation, generation and community action planning programmes and activities.
That will enable them to be conversant with how funds are generated and used for the development of their communities, to empower the citizenry to also be interested in sources of revenue, causes for low revenue and roles of stakeholders in revenue mobilisation.
Felix Amakye, a lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies, Accra was addressing members of the Awutu Senya East Municipal Assembly (ASEMA) and Awutu Senya District Assembly (ASDA) at separate capacity training fora on revenue mobilisation and community action planning at Ofaakor in Kasoa and Awutu Beraku, both in the Central Region.
It formed part of series of capacity training programmes organised by Intervention Forum (IF), a non-governmental organisation, under its Voice for Change (V4CP) project intended to empower the citizenry to be active participants in the growth and development of communities.
Speaking on, ‘Revenue mobilisation and community action planning’, Mr Amakye said it was incumbent on duty bearers to explain to assembly members and other stakeholders, especially at general assembly and town hall meetings, issues affecting growth and development of communities.
He touched on importance of revenue in service delivery, sources of revenue, causes of low revenue mobilisation and roles of stakeholders in revenue mobilisation, among other issues and explained roles of the citizenry in revenue mobilisation and MMDAs in optimising revenue generation and strategies for mobilisation.
“However, political interferences, inefficient and ineffective methods of revenue mobilisation, inadequate human and logistical capacity, cumbersome procedures for publishing by-laws, inadequate fees, public education and sensitisation, lack of transparency and accountability in utilisation of resource and misapplication of funds stifled their activities.
“For MMDAs to mobilise more revenue, it must embrace citizenship participation, social accountability to create ownership, participate in function of assemblies through draft by-law or fee-fixing resolution in communication before commencement,” Mr Amakye advised.
Nora Ollennu, Chief Executive Officer of IF, noted that while the country had achieved significant political decentralisation over the last two decades, it had not matched up in terms of fiscal decentralisation saying, it is “highly critical for MMDAs to work diligently towards generating sustainable and supplementary funding to ensure planned development agenda can be carried out to benefit local authority”.
–GNA