Tema Assembly Bags 4 Billion Cedis In Nine Months

Tema, (Greater Accra) 12 Nov.,

The Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) realised a total revenue of 4.1 billion cedis by September this year, Nii Armah Ashietey, the Municipal Chief Executive, disclosed yesterday. The assembly's traditional sources of revenue accounted for 2.8 billion cedis representing 79.7 per cent while the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) brought in approximately 1.3 billion cedis. Its expenditure for the period stood at 2.7 billion cedis or 44.51 per cent. Nii Ashietey told a meeting of the assembly that the TMA's revenue target for the year is 6.1 billion cedis, 3.5 billion cedis is expected from its own sources and the rest from the DACF. It projected a budget surplus of five million cedis. He urged the house to consider a revised budget estimate for approval, due to increase in revenue from lands, central government grants, payment of the 1996 balance of the DACF and encouraging returns on investment incomes. Other reasons are the loss of revenue from fees and fines due to non-collection of refuse fees from Ashaiman, Tema Manhean and Kpone and increase in expenditure. Nii Ashietey said the TMA has committed a sizeable portion of its revenue to development projects. There are 20 on-going projects which cover education, health, markets, public works and sanitation. Contracts for 19 new projects will be awarded by the end of the year. The TMA has also spent over 599 million cedis on road repair works in the municipality. On sanitation, he said the assembly is relocating about 80 pig farmers from Ashaiman at Zeenu over an area of about 40 acres. Nii Ashietey announced that the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has approved six priority projects of the TMA at the recent mayors conference for 28 African cities in Nairobi, Kenya. These include provision of water treatment facilities, capacity building for engineers and rehabilitation of industrial area roads. The others are hotel and conference centre facilities, warehousing facilities for export processing zones and the creation of markets for micro and small-scale businesses. Following the approval, UNIDO is now sourcing funding from private foreign investors to undertake these projects, Nii Ashietey said.