NORSAAC trains residents on domestic revenue mobilisation

NORSAAC, a Tamale based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has trained 43 residents on domestic revenue mobilisation in the Tamale Municipality and its environs.

The training was aimed at whipping up interest of women and young people mainly youth to develop and grow interest in ensuring accountability in revenue mobilisation and its effective utilisation within District Assemblies.

It involved using the community scorecard approach to assess the performance of District Assemblies in revenue mobilisation, to ensure the provision of adequate information on the budgeting processes of the Assemblies.

Participants were oriented on their roles, how to prioritise their needs in such roles and the information flow in domestic revenue mobilisation.

Their knowledge on the scorecard approach to paying revenue was assessed after which the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the mobilisation of revenue were explained to them.

This was part of the one-year Citizen For Domestic Revenue Mobilisation (C4DRM) project, which began early this year and scheduled to end by the close of 2019.

The objective of the project is to build the capacity of both revenue collectors and payers for in-depth understanding of revenue, its mobilisation and proper use, to enable them actively monitor the fiscal behaviours of the Assemblies.

NORSAAC is implementing the project in partnership with OXFARM and the Sagnerigu Municipal Assembly and the Zabzugu Districts Assembly in the Northern Region.

Mr Issah Aminu Danaa, the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager of NORSAAC, said the project was relevant to clear doubts, considering the controversies between District Assemblies and revenue payers and the perceptions regarding development and the use of revenue.

He said it was necessary for taxpayers and collectors to be at the same level of understanding, to promote the culture of paying taxes and seeking accountability for its use.

Mr Ahmed Hanan Deeshini, the consultant on the C4DRM project revealed that there were tax payment rate allocation for marriage and many other relevant information about tax payment and related duties that members of the public did not know about.

He associated this to ignorance as result of the lack of training and the non-availability of information about the taxpaying processes and indicated that it hindered the development of District Assemblies and marginalised the country's financial strength.