A case study has however shown that the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) and the Sagnarigu District Assembly (SaDA) have not been exploiting the law (rent tax and property rates) to collect enough revenue even though many properties are located within their jurisdictions.

The case study conducted in October, last year, by the Centre for Budget Advocacy – Ghana (CBAG) with support from IBIS in Ghana showed that TaMA collected around GHc 200,000 whiles SaDA collected GHc 50,000 in rent tax and property rates on annual basis.

The study, which was released in Tamale, said the District Assemblies Common Fund, which offered continuous source of funds for projects of district assemblies, was the reason the assemblies failed to fully exploit the rent tax and property rates to collect enough revenue.

Mr Vitus Azeem, Executive Director of CBAG said permanent staff of the assemblies who collected such taxes mostly underperformed knowing that their salaries were assured at the end of the month. He said those engaged on commission basis to collect such taxes performed better by collecting more.

The study recommended that district assemblies put in place measures to identify property owners, locate them and assess and levy the rates on them and pursue payments. It said district assemblies must implement the policy on street naming and house numbering to make it easy to locate properties and levy them.  It also urged assemblies to address the issue of lack of qualified persons to value properties to enable them levy accurate property rates to exploit the full potential of property rates.