Minister displeased at MMDAs “sleeping on job”

Mr Abdallah Abubakari, the Northern Regional Minister, has expressed displeasure at some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) for “sleeping on the job” thereby failing to meet their revenue targets.

The Minister, who was commenting about the performance of MMDAs in the region in terms of revenue generation, said: “Though some assemblies have done fairly well in this direction and they need to be commended, many others are still sleeping on the job and, therefore, need to wake up and perform to expectation”.

Mr Abubakari was speaking at the first meeting of the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC) in Tamale to assess the NRCC’s monitoring and coordinating roles to devise strategies for the future.

For the 2016 financial year, the 26 MMDAs in the region are expected to collect a total of GH¢15,583,243.00 as internally generated funds (IGF).

Mr Abubakari said as at the end of the first quarter of the year, all the MMDAs managed to collect only GH¢2, 257,343.00 representing 14.49 per cent of the estimated amount to be collected within the year.

He, therefore, urged metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives of the MMDAs that were not doing well to come out with strategies to enhance their IGFs.

Mr Abubakari appealed to MMDAs to speed up work on mandatory projects contained in their annual action plans for this year to enhance their service delivery in the areas of health and education.

Touching on peace and security in the region, he called on the metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives and district security committees to take more pro-active measures to reduce conflicts before they got out of control.

Mr Abubakari called for peace in this year’s elections adding: “security agencies in the region must put their intelligence mechanisms to work to track would-be trouble makers down so that we come out from the elections more united as a people”.

Source: GNA