Amos Kofi Opei Okai
A Chief Executive aspirant of the newly created Okaikoi Municipal Assembly, Amos Kofi Opei Okai, has said Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are capable of generating enough revenue to manage the assemblies.
He said all that they needed was to strengthen its revenue generation drive to take advantage of the booming businesses to support national development.
He told DAILY GUIDE yesterday that MMDAs in the country were not generating enough revenue from property rate, for instance, because people were not paying realistic rates and assemblies could take steps to strengthen its database to get the right things to be done.
“Due to poor data collection, we are not able to generate the right revenue and have always been struggling to push development agenda,” he indicated and added that should he become the MCE, he would ensure that all buildings in the municipality were re-evaluated and the correct rate charged.
He said the revenue accrued could be used to address sanitation, health, education and other developmental issues in the municipality.
Mr. Okai, who is also a businessman, said he would leverage on his experience in the community development office in Australia, where he worked for several years, to accelerate the development of the municipality.
He pointed out that MMDAs played crucial roles in the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda, explaining that if they were able to generate enough revenue, the government could use the common fund for other projects.
On Ghana’s democracy, he noted that the best approach was to empower the grassroots to be aware of their rights so they could demand them from politicians.
In view of this, he said he supported the steps being taken by the government for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to be elected from 2019.
He asserted the people could vote them out if they were not satisfied with their work, adding that decentralisation was the way to go if the country wanted to deepen its democracy.
Mr Okai served the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as organiser for Okaikwei North Constituency (1992-1993) and Chairman of the Nii Boye Electoral Area (1993-1998). He was elected the organiser for the Australian branch five years ago.