"Political interference is a major challenge hampering effective revenue mobilisation in Assemblies across the country."

Mr Peter Jongkind, the Project Director for VGN International who disclosed this encouraged all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to put in place pragmatic innovative measures to overcome the menace eroding strides in revenue mobilisation.

He was addressing a "Leadership Master Class" workshop organised under the Tax Revenue for Economic Enhancement (TREE) project for revenue mobilisation by MMDAs held at the Ridge Royal Hotel in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

The engagement sought to institutionalise better structures for effective mobilisation of Internally Generated Funds (IGF) by adopting new collection-led tax processes aided by innovative IT solutions, communications campaigns, and legal enforcement in 33 beneficiary MMDAs across the country.

It was attended by selected 16 Metropolitan, Municipal Chief Executives (MMDCEs) from the Central and Western Regions including; Coordinating Directors, Finance Officers, Presiding Members, assembly members and implementing partners.

Among others, they were schooled in Financial Management, Change Management, project planning and execution.

Netherlands Government through its TREE Project has automated Revenue Mobilisation in the 16 selected Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Central and Western Regions of Ghana.

It will be replicated later in the various MMDAs across the country based on the success of the pilot project.

Mr Jongkind asked the MMDCEs to lead the change process and support the efforts of their staff and the TREE project team to achieve the mutual goal of enhancing revenue and service delivery to all citizens regardless of one's geographical latitude.

As part of efforts to rake in more revenue, he announced that the TREE project had so far deployed three major software in the beneficiary MMDAs.

The software were being used to collect data, locate property and manage the entire revenue streams of the Assembly to drastically reduce revenue leakages.

The TREE project, according to Mr. Jongkind is at an advanced stage of introducing e-billing and e-payment which will enable rate payers in MMDAs to use mobile money to pay their property rates.

Mr. Kwamena Duncan, Regional Minister expressed satisfaction about the progress made by the TREE project in a year of its implementation in the Region.

He was particularly impressed with the huge improvement made on the revenue database of the beneficiary MMDAs and urged them to take advantage of the revenue management software to enhance their revenue base.

While acknowledging the implementing partners and Northland's government, the Minister, stated that the project tied in with the President's vision of Ghana Beyond Aid.

"It is only when Assemblies learn good practices in revenue mobilisation from the TREE project and enhance their revenue base that the 'Ghana Beyond Aid' Agenda can become a reality at the local level."

In that regard, he admonished Assemblies to effectively prioritise revenue mobilisation, declared his support for it and rallied the unalloyed support of all to make it a success.