The Assembly raised GHc14 million against a budgeted revenue of GH13.8 million.

The performance was attributed to some factors, including capturing more new businesses, controlled flow of cheques within revenue collectors, periodic monitoring by taskforce, and good record keeping.

The Municipal Chief Executive for the Assembly, Nii Adjei Tawiah, disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency, in an interview, in Accra.

He said the Assembly would do better this year, and as such was currently putting in place additional measures to, especially ensure the constant collection of market tolls at the various lorry stations and markets, a major source of Internally Generated Funds (IGF).

He said, “we have begun monitoring exercises at these markets and lorry stations, to ensure that the collectors are working effectively, and traders are also complying. Also, employees of the Assembly will be tasked to begin issuing tickets aside the contracted collectors to identify the gabs.”

“We have the data of traders in all the markets, and we have noticed that the revenue collected do not usually match the number of traders at the markets, so we started the exercise last week at the Odorna market and this week to Tema Station and will continue till we are done with all the markets.”

Nii Tawiah noted that there was the need to enhance revenue as from this year, property rates, which contributed a chunk of most Assemblies IGF would no longer be collected by the Assemblies. “Usually by now if we have not gotten grants from government to cover our operations, we would have been getting some monies from property rates among others, but that is no more available.”

“This means that to meet the demands at the Assembly, we need to be more proactive in collecting our IGF on the grounds like the lorry stations and markets so we can deliver the services that the community needs.”

Nii Tawiah, noted that so far, at the Tema Station Market, the compliance level was high, and hoped that other stations and markets within the Municipality would also comply to make their work easier.

“This is going to be a frequent exercise, especially since our IGF is going to be reduced drastically due to the absence of property rates. This Assembly needs money because there are a lot of issues like sanitation, security, streetlights, education, that needs to be addressed, and we need to be up and doing to be able to meet the expenses.”

The MCE encouraged traders to comply with the directive and pay their tolls regularly so that the Assembly could generate more revenue to provide the needed services and develop the markets.