Wassa East to develop tourism sites to enhance revenue

The Wassa East District in the Western Region has decided to develop the tourism sites in the area to enhance revenue for socio-economic development.

Madam Richael Ofosu Asare, the District Coordinating Director, said the Assembly had identified the Domeama Rock Shrine as one of the sites that could be promoted to enhance the Assembly’s revenue.

She said the Assembly would construct access road to the place and put the necessary structures for prospective tourists in the 2017 District Budget and also create a website to showcase the tourist sites to global audience.

Madam Asare announced this at a community engagement at Atobiase to inform the people about the Assembly’s achievements and challenges and the way forward.
The event provided a platform for the people to express their concerns, suggestions, and enabled the Assembly to clarify developmental challenges in the area.

Mr. Vincent Mawuli Wordi, the District Budget Officer, took the participants through the Assembly’s programme outlined in this year’s budget and explained the factors affecting its dwindling revenue collection.

He mentioned inadequate data on revenue sources leading to the ad-hoc approach to revenue collection and under-estimated budget and targets.

He said there was no delivery of bills for licence and fees by revenue collectors to individual property owners and other rate payers, except for well established companies.

Moreover, there was limited supervision and monitoring of revenue collectors at the Assembly and sub-structure levels, which led to revenue leakages, he said.

Against this backdrop, the Budget Officer suggested the need for effective public education on rate payments in the various communities, the completion of street names and property addresses in order to locate revenue points in major communities, as well as enforcing the Assembly’s bye-laws on payment of basic and property rates and sanction defaulters.

He also called for an effective tracking system to easily identify rate defaulters, so as to plug all revenue leakages,
The Assembly, he said, must provide basic logistics such as identity cards, uniforms, bags and a vehicle for revenue collectors to improve revenue collection.

He called effective collaboration between the Assembly and other stakeholders to enhance public education on revenue mobilisation.

Madam Estherine Mensah, the District Planning Officer, said that the four Area Councils in the district; Daboase, Ekutuase, Ateiku and Enyinabrim, collected a total of GHc36, 039. 70 last year, saying this was woefully inadequate to facilitate any infrastructural development.