Step up revenue generation efforts – Terkper tells MMDAs

Minister of Finance Mr Seth Terkper says Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) must reduce their dependence on the central government and innovate their own revenue mobilisation strategies for development.

The Minister of Finance made the call in a statement read on his behalf, during a Regional Budget Hearing at Yendi in the Northern Region.

He said many property owners do not pay rates to the assemblies and tasked the MMDAs to do more to address this.

Additionally, he said government was aligning payrolls of MMDAs to their compensation budget to effectively monitor the implementation of that budget.

Mr Terkper said the Ministry had sent templates to the MMDA’s to collect employee compensation data that would feed into the 2016 Compensation Budget, and urged all Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives to continue to exercise oversight responsibility on district employees to assist the government weed out all ghost names from pay rolls.

He said the Regional Budget Hearing had become a critical activity in the District Annual Budget Preparation Process, as it provides the Regional Coordinating Councils the opportunity to ensure that MMDA policies are consistent with the National Development Policy Framework.

Alhaji Issah Zakaria, the Yendi Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), called on assemblies to ensure that all issues contained in their annual budgets for 2016 reflected the true issues and challenges of their districts.

Source: GNA