The Yendi Municipal Assembly has approved its 2023 Composite Budget, Fee Fixing Resolution for 223 financial year, and 2023 Annual Action Plan of the Mid-Term Development Plan (MTDP) (2022-2025) during its Assembly meeting in Yendi in the Northern Region.
In his address Alhaji Hammed Abubakar Yussuf, Municipal Chief Executive, said most of the projects and programmes had to be rolled over from this year 2022 to next year 2023 as they were unable to execute them due to financial challenges.
He announced that for 2023 fiscal year, they were expecting a total revenue of GH¢ 29,876,634.00 and out of the figure they were expected to generate an amount of GH¢ 773,550.00 internally, while the rest was expected from other source such as Ghana Secondary City Support Programme (GSCSP), District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT), District Assembly Common Fund (DACF), GULF of Guinea Social Cohesion Project (SOCO), USAID, UNICEF and Central Government by way of goods and services and compensation or salaries.
He reminded them that the projection should not raise their expectation so high because they projected an amount of GH¢ 19,600,000.00 as revenue, but as at the end of August 2022 they had received only GH¢ 5,093.000.
Touching on the Fee Fixing Resolution of the Assembly Alhaji Hammed said it would enable them to impose levies on commercial activities to meet their annual target.
According to him in preparing the 2023 Fee Fixing Resolution, the current economic situation resulting in the increasing cost of goods and services, and the impact it would have on the citizenry were taken into consideration and it had become imperative that they made adjustment to some of the levies which had remained the same for several years.
He said the Executive Committee of the Assembly met and made recommendations from its Sub-Committees and accepted that German Cemetery in Yendi should be developed into tourist attraction site to generate revenue for the Assembly, more refuse containers should be procured to address the solid waste management challenges in the municipality especially, Yendi township, among others.
He said he enjoyed support from the Assembly members since his assumption of office and they deserved credit for all the achievements and called on them to maintain the approach in resolving all critical issues that come before the house.
Mr Hussein Abdul-Karim, the Presiding member of the Assembly expressed appreciation and gratitude to the Assembly members, heads of department and all units for supporting the Assembly in formulation and implementation of key policies and programmes that contributed significantly to the total development of the Municipality.
Mr Hussein thanked the heads of the Security Agencies for attending the Assembly meetings and said he was not happy about how the Yendi Municipal Assembly police officers failed to attend their meetings since they were in charge of peace and security of the municipality.
He charged the Social Service Sub-Committee of the Assembly to contact the Yendi Municipal Police Commander, to inform him that it was important for them to attend the meetings.
He appealed to the Assembly members to get involved in revenue mobilisation activities at their various electoral areas with the management of the assembly monitoring the revenue collectors to avoid leakages. —GNA
