Ada West Assembly above partisanship - DCE

The Ada West District Chief Executive (DCE) in the Greater Accra Region, Mr Adzoteye Lawer Akrofi, has commended the members of the assembly for their commitment to duty which has seen the handling of issues devoid of partisan and parochial considerations.

“Not too soon this session of the assembly will come to an end as all assemblies across the country will be dissolved, except a couple of districts, for obvious reasons,” Mr Akrofi stated.

“The quality of deliberations in the House and output as an assembly was not compromised,” he said.

That, he said, was evidenced by the fact that members worked tirelessly to raise the bar above partisanship and other parochial considerations to ensure that the interest of the district stood paramount in every consideration.

“It is, therefore, with heavy heart that I make this statement prior to the dissolution of the house because I have fond memories of the positive criticisms and encouragement from both my party and that of our opposing side that I have enjoyed as District Chief Executive with honourable members,” Mr Akrofi said.

The DCE made the remarks when he addressed the assembly at the third ordinary meeting of the fourth session of the Ada West District Assembly at Sege, the district capital last Thursday.

He said he was aware that the assembly was replete with experienced members and hoped that as many as would wish to put themselves up for election would be elected, especially the committed and hardworking members, to return and help share their knowledge and experience with other members to enrich deliberations which would accelerate the pace of development of the district when the assemblies were reconstituted.

Maintaining focus

Mr Akrofi said the assembly would remain focused in pursuit of its development agenda and would continue to sustain the gains made and improve upon the deliberations of the House.

He also seized the opportunity and thanked the heads of department and the entire staff for their unyielding support and considerations that had brought the assembly that far in their collective quest to meet the development aspirations of the people they served.

Revenue

The DCE announced that the assembly had an estimated budget of GH¢7, 112, 529.26 out of which GH¢3, 806, 482.85 was received as at August 31, 2019.

The budgeted Central government grant, he said stood at GH¢6,427,529.26 out of which GH¢3,1130,496.34 was realised as at August 2019 representing 49 per cent.

With regards to internally generated fund, he said GH¢685,000 was budgeted out of which GH¢598,093.04 had been mobilised, representing 86 per cent and commended the revenue taskforce for achieving that feat.

To boost revenue generation drive, Mr Akrofi gave an assurance that management would be supporting the sub-district structures with adequate staff and logistics to empower them to collect revenue on their own so that the assembly would cede a certain portion to them for the development of those sub-districts.

Tax evasion

Mr Akrofi said tax evasion was one of the issues the assembly was confronted with as that eroded the assembly’s resource mobilisation and that had to be checked.

He said the general public in the district would do the assembly a favour if they ensured that money they paid to the assembly’s revenue collectors was properly receipted and report any suspicion of malfeasance on the part of the revenue collectors to the assembly for punitive action to be taken.

Communication

The Presiding Member of the assembly, Mr David Narh Amuyao, urged the assembly members to communicate the assembly’s development issues to the communities that they were representing in the various electoral areas.