Mr. Kofi Agyei, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Berekum East has warned tax defaulters and evaders in the Municipality to rethink their decisions and pay their taxes to avoid prosecution.
He cautioned corporate business concerns and self-employees to endeavour, patriotically and nationalistically to honour their tax obligations, both to the Assembly and government through the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) for enough revenue to develop the Municipality and the nation.
Mr. Agyei gave the warning when he was addressing a town hall meeting organised by the Assembly on Friday at Berekum in the Brong-Ahafo Region.
It created the platform for the MCE, Assembly Members (AMs), staff of the Assembly and Heads of Departments to interact with the populace to inform and educate them on issues pertaining to the operations of the Assembly.
Among the participants were traditional rulers, religious leaders, educationists and other civil servants, entrepreneurs, traders, farmers, artisans, workers from the public and private financial institutions and representatives of non-governmental and civil society organisations.
Topical issues that generated high interest in the interaction were projects, budget and finances of the Assembly.
The MCE stressed the need for the people to corporate with their revenue collectors to pay their taxes, tolls and rates to meet the internally-generated fund (IGF) targets, but the people were also concerned about transparency in the awards of contracts, projects implementation, finances and expenditure of the Assembly.
Mr. Agyei emphasised that the Assembly would no longer countenance any unpatriotic act of tax evasion, warning that punitive measures, besides the Court action, might be meted out to defaulters and evaders.
He explained the town hall meeting formed part of the government’s agenda to bring decentralisation to the doorsteps of the people and urged the AMs to hold regular meetings with the people in their electoral areas to brief them about developments in the Municipality.
Mr. Haruna Abdulai, the Municipal Planning Officer (MPO) who doubles as the acting Municipal Coordinating Director (MCD), expressed grave concern about the low level of revenue mobilisation and thus the Assembly’s inability to meet its IGF target of 85 per cent in 2017.
He appealed to all stakeholders to support the Assembly to be able to increase the IGF to support the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) and other subventions to embark on viable infrastructural development projects to give the Municipality a facelift.
Earlier the MCE held a press conference to brief the local media about the general performance and achievements of the Assembly since his assumption of office on May 22, 2017.
