Government approves the use of bonds

Tamale, Oct. 20, GNA - The government has given approval to the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and other Assemblies in the major cities to use the bond market to raise funds for their development projects. The bonds would augment the financial positions of the assemblies, most of which had relied on the Common Fund for major projects, especially economic infrastructure development.

Mr Mohammed Amin Adam, Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), announced this when he addressed the second session of the Assembly in Tamale on Thursday.

He said the Assembly had already begun discussions with the Data Bank to float the first Municipal Bonds in Ghana and urged members to work hard to generate more revenue for the assembly. He said the Assembly was likely to suspend all its administrative and development activities for this year if the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and the Environment withdrew its Sanitation Fund.

The MCE said the assembly spent two billion cedis quarterly on sanitation management while it received six billion cedis as its share of the District Assemblies' Common Fund. Mr. Adam said the assembly's internally generated revenue for 2005 was 1.6 billion cedis but indicated that the House was expected to collect less revenue this year. The MCE said the assembly had set up a Revenue Task Force to assist its regular collectors.

The Task Force has so far collected 67.7 million cedis since its inception in September. Mr Adam attributed the poor revenue situation of the Assembly to inefficient revenue collection, under-declaration, the lack of monitoring mechanism and the unwillingness of the people to pay their taxes.

He said the assembly would soon take delivery of 60 tricycles as part of the National Sanitation Programme to improve garbage collection in the Metropolis.

He said following fruitful interactions with the business community in Accra and companies they had pledged their readiness to establish their branches in Tamale. Some of these companies would provide hostel facilities for the Tamale Polytechnic and the University for Development Studies (UDS).