Regional Minister To Sanction Assemblies?

Salaga (N/R), - 16 June The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Gilbert Iddi, has threatened to sanction district assemblies which are unable to achieve more than 60 per cent of their revenue target in the year. Addressing the first session of the East Gonja district assembly at Salaga yesterday, Mr Iddi said he will no longer acccept the excuse of the ethnic conflict as the cause of assemblies' poor revenue collection. He reprimanded the East Gonja district assembly for achieving less than 10 per cent of their revenue target and warned them against the use of the district assemblies' common fund for their recurrent expenditure. District asemblies draw their budgets based on data, he noted and said ''if your data is reliable, you cannot fail to achieve the minimum of 60 per cent of your revenue target.'' He urged the members to take more interest in local revenue mobilisation to augment the common fund for the development of their districts.