A section of the Presiding Members at the property rate lecture in Accra
Head of Communication, myassembly.gov.gh (Property Rate) project, Ernest Adade, has urged property rate taxpayers to embrace the new innovation of making payments using their online portal.
He said the online portal was invented to streamline the revenue mobilization process for inclusive governance and development, adding that the move towards online property rate payments via ‘portal.myassembly.gov.gh’ was designed to enhance efficiency, convenience, and promote transparency in the Internally Generated Funds (IGF) of the Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
“Every individual ratepayer can now boast of their own dashboards where every payment is monitored in real-time. This new process eliminates any human intervention, prevents fraud, and saves the ratepayer as well as the MMDAs time and money” he said.
Mr. Adade underscored the payments made by some property owners and the need for active involvement and education by PMs within the assembly to maximize revenue generation.
“Presiding members are influential figures within the local government structure and can play a pivotal role in disseminating information about the importance of adhering to the new property rate payment system” he stated.
“The PMs have a duty to ensure that their members understand the new process and embrace it as well as help convey the benefits of using the portal to property owners, and also to the assemblymen,” Mr Adade mentioned.
He reiterated that the allusion that some assembly members were passing resolutions to revert to the old way of mobilizing the IGF was a thing of the past and that the public must understand nobody was allowed to collect property rates in the old form again.
“The new regime is cashless and the law will deal with anyone going around demanding money from ratepayers. All payments are digital on portal.myassembly.gov.gh” he noted.
He advised that as the assembly’s mandate was to coordinate, facilitate, monitor, and supervise local activities within all district assemblies for national development, there was a need for better cooperation with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
The National Dean of Presiding Members, Joseph Korto acknowledged that the project had its challenges and it was so because the system was new and was hopeful things would change in the coming year for more people to get involved.
“I want to encourage my people to support the system in generating more income for the assembly by educating the residents in the localities through town hall meetings and other engagements to make payments on the portal,” he said.
By Prince Fiifi Yorke