The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) has intensified efforts and strategies to generate more revenue to propel growth and development in the northern regional capital.
The Mayor of Tamale, Hon Sule Salifu, has rallied support of all stakeholders including the police, National Investigative Bureau to help generate as much revenue from the various market centers, individual shops among other business operating areas.
The Tamale Chief Executive last two weeks led a taskforce to pay an unannounced visit to Guunayili livestock market after gathering intelligence that the revenue proceeds were being under declared to the assembly.
THE CUSTODIAN gathered the assembly generated about GHS10,000 on that particular day which was far higher compared to some GHS1,000 to GHS2,000 the market revenue collectors would always bring to the assembly.
Chairman of the Tamale Metro sub-committee on revenue mobilization, Hon Ibrahim Baba, in an exclusive interview stated the assembly depends heavily on the Internal Generated Fund (IGF) for the development of the metropolis.
According to him, an investigation was carried out by the city authorities to obtain firsthand information on the activities of the market especially the cash flows particularly on a market day which informed them the exact actions to be taken.
The Fooshegu assemblyman noted the Guunayili livestock market is the largest animal market in the metropolis and there are a lot of revenue inflows in that regard.
However, he said the outcome of the investigations revealed a lot of the people were evading tax payment among other issues.
“…So as we’re here, we are getting to know everything. In the last market day, we had almost like 1000 animals brought to the market for sale and the assembly has a fee on all animals in and out but we don’t receive the actual revenue we expected from the market” he asserted.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of the market, Yellow Kassim, told THE CUSTODIAN Northern Regional Correspondent, Mohammed Gadafi, that the interest of the metro assembly in the collection process is commendable.
He said the difference in the revenue before and now is a testimony that the seriousness of the assembly yielding positive results.
THE CUSTODIAN has learned an amount of eight cedis is charged on each cattle out which four cedis goes to the assembly, two cedis to Chief palace and the other two cedis is for the livestock market association.
