The revenue loopholes in Okai Kwei North Municipality and the hypocrisy of officials

One of the core reasons behind the concept of decentralization is to bring governance to the doorsteps of the local populace. It is assumed that those who are close to a problem best understand the problems they face.

Hence, unlike centralization, decentralization affords the local people who have a better understanding of the magnitude of the problems they face to find

Read full article.solutions to them. This means that decentralization is supposed to bring about efficiency in governance.

Unfortunately, decentralization in Ghana has not yielded the development that it is intended to bring. A visit to several districts in the country would reveal many teething problems which are so obvious but which seem to have escaped the lenses of the district assemblies. One can find huge heaps of garbage in marketplaces, dumped refuse in rivers or water bodies, drainage systems that have been turned into a toilet by indigenes, schools operating under trees et cetera.

Apart from these problems, one can also observe huge opportunities for revenue generation which have been ignored by the assemblies. The Okai Kwei North Municipality, for instance, has huge revenue generation opportunities as well as problems that Authorities pretend not to see.

The focus of this paper is on one of the revenue opportunities that those in charge of the municipality do not seem to be interested in or pretend not to see.

For a while now, the Lapaz stretch of the N1 Road has been turned into a night market. Traders peddle varying goods. From comestibles such as eggs, cooking oil, plantain, and garden eggs to industrial tools such as hammers, spanners, screwdrivers et cetera.

The fashion industry is also not left out. Shoes of all sizes and types, clothes of varying sizes and types, school bags, travel bags, and many others, are also sold. These traders begin their activities at 7 pm and close at 2 am the next day.

But I wonder if the Okai Kwei North Municipality has been able to cash in on this to tax them. Have they sanctioned the night market? If they have, how much do they earn from the night trade? Or have they allowed the business-as-usual posture to go on and allow dodgy characters to collect money in connivance with some selfish assembly officials at the expense of the entire Municipality?

Background

Many years into the Fourth Republic, the Assemblies continue to behave like babies, whose survival is heavily dependent on the breast milk of central government funding. The assemblies do not have the proper data on the number of properties in their jurisdiction and how much they ought to collect from the owners of these properties.

As a result, some unscrupulous vampires have taken advantage of the loopholes to amass wealth at the expense of the entire assembly. It is common to see authorised and unauthorised revenue collectors connive with traders to deprive the assemblies of their rightful revenue.

Others have also been intoxicated by the title of honourable chief executive, honourable presiding members, honourable Assembly Members and honourable Unit Committee Members and ignored the very tasks they are supposed to perform. After all, how do we expect them to be accountable to us when the constitution has made it possible for many of them to be in office either through political appointment or hide under the curtain of the so-called non-partisan nature of the assemblies?

The way forward

The Okai Kwei North Municipality, like many assemblies scattered throughout the country, must take advantage of the revenue opportunities, ought to register all traders and properties, within the municipality and move away from manual tax collection to e-tax collection. This is the best way the assembly can get the revenue requisite revenue.

Secondly, the assemblies must move away from political appointments into the assemblies and employ qualified personnel. This would not only inure to the efficiency of the assemblies but would also address the problem of youth unemployment which has befuddled the country.

Furthermore, the best way of ensuring the efficiency of the assemblies, in my view, is not the election of district chief executives, but, rather, having a qualification criterion for the appointment as DCE, MMCE or Mayor. The candidates for these positions must go through an interview process.

Whoever is finally appointed should be given a benchmark to accomplish within a certain period. If he/she fails to meet the set standards, then the council would sack him/her from office.