The Shama District Assembly is expected to expend 20% of its Common Fund on beneficiaries under the Nation Builders’ Corp, District Chief Executive for the area Joseph Amoah has revealed.

The Assembly, according to the DCE has received its allocation of the DACF for the 3rd and 4th Quarters of 2017.

At the Fifth ordinary meeting held at the Assembly last Thursday, Hon. Joseph Amoah said a new guideline for the utilisation of the District Assembly Common Fund has been effected by the Administrator of Common Fund.

Mr. Amoah noted “we have received information that the new guidelines for the utilisation of the District Assembly Common Fund have been introduced as such disbursements should be in accordance with same. This policy takes effect with this year’s allocaion and per the new guidelines, 40% of the allocation will go into School Feeding program, 20% to the Nation Builders’ Corp, 20% to the Planting for Food and Jobs whilst the remaining 20% goes to fund the Assembly’s programs and projects”.

He continued that the assembly would have to realign its budget, Medium term Development Plan and Annual Action Plan for 2018 to reflect the changes.

“We as a matter of urgency will therefore need to realign our budget to reflect the change policy. This would indeed affect the disbursement of funds for all our projects and programs and would therefore need re-adjustment to fit into the guidelines. We also have to review our Medium Term Development Plan and Annual Action Plan for 2018 to reflect the changes in our finances”, he explained.

Acknowledging a need to mobilise funds to support the assembly’s developmental plan, Mr Amoah charged members of the assembly to proactively engage with the citizenry to deepen knowledge on taxation and revenue mobilization.

“It is obvious that releases from the Central Government have become so unreliable that we are unable to follow through with our programs, projects and activities in time, and I believe you will agree with me that, we now, more than ever, have to concentrate our energies more on improving upon our local revenue collection to support our plan implementation”, he said.

He intimated the collective action from assembly members is needed to improve their local revenue collection.

“I therefore wish to reiterate my earlier call for support from all, especially Assembly and Area Council members in particular to help in the sensitisation of the citizenry for improved revenue collection and also to assist the revenue collectors in your electoral areas in the discharge of their duty”, he emphasized.

In 2017 fiscal year, the Shama District Assembly was able to generate internally, an amount of GH¢ 673,059.70. This represent a marginal increase of 9.87% of its Internally Generated Fund (IGF) in 2016 (GH¢ 612,543.79).