He indicated that taxes such as property rates, market fees and basic rates were key revenues charged by the Assembly to embark on some development projects in the Bawku Municipality and said failure to honour these obligations deprived the Assembly from development projects.

Mr Seidu made the call at a day’s fee fixing forum aimed at educating the citizenry, especially market women and local business people on the need to pay their taxes because it was the only revenue source that the state could use to embark on development projects in the country.

The forum was organized by CODAC under the Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (SPEFA) project. Mr Seidu noted that the forum was also focused at educating the citizenry on the role of the Assembly to make it more effective in developing the area and called on the participants to impart the knowledge acquired to their colleagues who were absent at the forum.

Mr Daniel Akologo, Bawku Municipal Budget Officer in a presentation explained that fee fixing was a process to help plan and collect revenue for the development of the area.

He said Act 462 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana assigned the assemblies role to prepare a plan to take taxes and levies to embark on their projects and to seek the entire welfare of the citizenry in their jurisdiction.

He hinted that the Assembly could only execute their planned projects and other activities including the general welfare of the people if it generated funds from the taxes collected from areas such as lands, property rates, basic rates, market stores, and levies from activities of traders in the Municipality.

Mr Akologo charged the participants to be patriotic to the state and collaborate with the Assembly to be able to track down people who have the intentions to divert the taxes collected for the development of the area.

CODAC is an Upper East Regional based non-governmental organization working to empower the citizenry on their rights to develop at the grass roots level. 

The organization which has been carrying out various sensitization topics to engage the citizenry on public expenditure on Tuesday focused its education lessons on fee fixing resolution at the Bawku Municipal Assembly.

The participants at the forum, who included market women, artisans, livestock sellers, food vendors, cola nut sellers among others, were educated to actively participate in the fee fixing resolution concept of the Assembly.