Saema to Abrogate Contract

The Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SAEMA) has finally decided to abrogate the agreement signed between them and Messrs Aero Survey, a private revenue-collecting firm based in Takoradi who were tasked to value and collect property rate on behalf of the assembly in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis for non-performance.

Even though rates generally constitute about 50% of the internally generated revenue for the assembly, Messrs Aero Survey with Mr. Chaka Azu as its chief executive were said to have collected only 50% of the projected revenue, thus putting the assembly at a serious financial position.

An internal audit finding on the operations of the revenue company revealed, for instance, that a whopping amount of ?2 billion is still outstanding as arrears for the 2002 fiscal year.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr. Philip Kwesi Nkrumah, who announced the abrogation of the contract at the first meeting of the assembly in Sekondi last Tuesday, said his outfit is now considering the possibility of allowing the staff of the assembly to collect the property rate instead of giving it out as contract to private companies or individuals who could not perform.

"The assembly is now collecting the business operating license and we could see from our operations that we are even performing better than the private companies who have been contracted to do almost the same job, he said.

Mr. Nkrumah noted that though the assembly believes that it could do the work on its own, judging from their recent performance, it at the same time believes in the private sector participation and has, therefore, decided to invite bids from private individuals and companies to take up the job.

The chief executive however made it clear that inviting bids from private companies does not mean that they are automatically going to give the job to a private company. He said those who would put in their bids would have to convince the assembly that they could do better than what Aero Survey did otherwise the assembly would do the job by itself.

Continuing, Mr. Nkrumah said notwithstanding the abysmal performance by Aero Survey which almost affected the revenue base of the assembly, great strides towards revenue mobilization were still made.

According to him out of the total revenue of 15.4 billion cedis projected, 11.3 billion cedis representing 73% was collected at the end of December last year.

The only shortfall apart from the operations of Aero survey was the modest 905 million cedis received from the estimated common fund allocation of ?3.7 billion. "This placed the assembly at a very awkward and tight position in the light of payments to be effected to contractors who duly completed projects awarded them," he noted.

The young metropolitan chief executive who is also a lawyer by profession further told the assembly members who attended the meeting in their numbers, that since this scenario calls for a more aggressive and strategic approach to revenue collection, the revenue mobilization, finance and administration sub committees would need to take a serious look at the situation and strategize to improve upon the revenue collection machinery.

On the expenditure, Nkrumah said a total of ?12.2 billion out of the projected figure of ?14.6 billion was spent within the same fiscal year. Recurrent expenditure also rose to ?8.06 billion, which is over and above the projected figure of ?7.95 billion.