Some donor partners are reported to have withdrawn their helping hand from the Kassena-Nankana West District at a time the assembly is seriously indebted and several important projects remain uncompleted in that deprived part of the Upper East region.
The withdrawal will now take a rare toll on the pockets of property owners in the area as the assembly has come up with a fresh proposal to tax every house Gh¢10 every year as property rate to keep its ‘dehydrated’ purse alive.
The District Coordinating Director, Augustus Kwaku Awity, told Starr News the area councils would do the tax collection and those who did not comply would face prosecution.
“Ghana is now a lower middle-income country. So, most of the donors have withdrawn. We need to generate revenue ourselves in order to implement our programmes. In view of the challenges we have as a result of the withdrawal of the donors, we, as an assembly, think if we levy them Gh¢10 for a year and they are able to pay, we would rake in a lot of money.
“And that one would cover for and would also help to [tackle] most of the challenges we have in the district. That’s why we are laying emphasis on that. It’s a proposal. If assembly members approve it in the next assembly meeting, then, we will go ahead and collect it,” he said.
Some property-owners cringed with concern when officials from the assembly called attention to the new property rate plan during a town hall meeting held in the district.
“We have nothing doing here in the dry season. There is no dam. All I have is a mud house. And you want to collect Gh¢10 from me as property rate. We are waiting for them,” reacted Thomas Kaporo, a farmer at Chiana.
The forum was organised by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. It was sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and facilitated by the Rural Initiatives for Self-Empowerment Ghana (RISE-Ghana).
Whilst the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Social Investment Fund (SIF) and the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) among others are said to have pulled out of the district, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the World Vision International (WVI) and WaterAid Ghana, according to the assembly, have stayed behind.
MP Rejects “Transfer of Burden” to “Impoverished Communities”
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Chiana-Paga, Rudolf Amenga-Etego, attended the town hall meeting together with heads of departments and agencies, traditional authorities and government representatives.
Speaking to newsmen moments after the event, the MP criticised the new property rate proposal, saying it was an unfair “transfer of burden” to “impoverished communities”.
“Trying to generate fund from the community is a good idea, but you should understand that this is the poorest region in this country. Over 80% of the population live below the poverty line. This place is a typical rural district as you can see. So, the idea of Central Government transferring the burden of development to the communities is, in principle, not a very fair arrangement. It’s not a very fair arrangement.
“Look at LEAP (Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty) for example. The numbers are so huge. Why? It’s because a lot of people here are classified as poor. So, we are simply transferring the burden of development to very impoverished communities, which would translate into further poverty. If I cannot even meet my daily bread and I have to give out one cedi, two cedis to ten cedis, that is something,” remarked the legislator.
3 Die from Unsafe Abortion; No Cholera Case— GHS
The district, according to the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has not recorded any case of cholera between 2016 and now. But it recorded five maternal deaths in 2017 alone, three of the cases as a result of unsafe abortion.
“We are working hard to prevent outbreaks in the district. Our district, in particular, is noted for always having cholera. For the past two years, we have been able to curb this. We haven’t recorded a single case of cholera,” the District Director of Health Services, Juliana Anam-erime, announced at the forum.
She added: “We are also working towards reduction in maternal and newborn deaths in the district. Our district hasn’t got a hospital. Unfortunately, last year, we contributed to maternal deaths at the Navrongo War Memorial Hospital. We contributed to five deaths. Three of these were as a result of unsafe abortion. We have come up with strategies to reduce this in 2018 through serious community engagement.”
Forum aimed at Promoting Development Ties between Citizens and Assembly— RISE-Ghana
The town hall meeting was themed: “Improving Service Delivery, Transparency and Accountability through Feedback and Dialogue on Local Government Plans and Budget.”
Welcoming participants to the forum, RISE-Ghana’s Project Manager, Jaw-haratu Amadu, said the event formed part of a social accountability project aimed at “bringing our community people closer to the assembly and the assembly closer to the people”.
“We all pay our taxes, and we sit in our homes and imagine what our tax is being used for. We elect assembly members. We go for assembly meetings to develop our communities. And sometimes we complain we don’t get feedback; we don’t know what the assembly is doing.
“So, today, we are here. Assembly members are here. Assembly staff are here to present what assembly has been doing in 2018 and the budget we have to develop our district. We are all here to plan together,” she stated.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
