Abstract:
The concept of decentralisation as a developmental phenomenon
comes with it, financial decentralisation and autonomy in which case the sub
national institutions are enjoined to generate their own revenues for their
developmental activities within their geographical areas. The study was to find
out to what extent the Ahanta West District Assembly prosecutes its service
delivery functions with its own internally generated revenues, and to examine
the potentials and the challenges in the area of increased revenue mobilisation.
The study used focus group discussions and interview schedules,
applying both the probability and non-probability sampling techniques for a
total of 250 respondents drawn from the six Area Councils of the District. In
addition, 14 revenue collectors and 12 key informants were also administered
with questionaires.
The main findings are that the Assembly’s recurrent expenditure far
exceeds its internally generated revenues and therefore leaves no surplus to
support service delivery functions. The main conclusions are that the
Assembly is not making enough savings from its revenues internally to
complement central government grants thus making it overly dependent on
central government for funds. This is due in part to increasing recurrent
expenditure which whittles away any gains in the growth of internally
generated revenues. It is recommended, inter alia, that conscious efforts are
made by the Assembly to extend its revenue collections into areas that have
been ignored in the past such as micro economic activities in very difficult
communities.
