Internally generated revenues and their contributions to physical development : a case study of Ahanta West District Assembly

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.