NCCE EMBARKS ON TAX EDUCATION (PAGE 29, FEB 12, 2010)

THE Tema Directorate of the Ghana National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has instituted programmes to educate the public on the district assembly concept, its bye-laws and fee-fixing resolutions.
This, according to the NCCE, was as a result of the ignorance exhibited by a majority of the people in various communities in the metropolitan area .
At Tema Manhean, a team from the NCCE met with taxpayers, made up of civil society, religious groups and representatives of various artisan associations who formed the economic base of the Tema Assembly at a forum to educate them on the need to meet their tax obligations.
Issues discussed included decentralisation, the Local Government Act 462, which gave power to the assemblies, the role of the assembly, tolls, basic rates, property rates and business operating licence.
The Metropolitan Director of the NCCE, Mr Ebenezer Tetteh Wayo, explained that the assembly laws were made for the people, but dissemination of the laws had not been effective and, therefore, people who found themselves working for the assembly were themselves ignorant of their responsibilities.
Mr Tetteh Wayo said on its rounds, the NCCE had observed that people in the metropolis lacked knowledge of activities of the assembly and, therefore, did not see the need to pay taxes imposed by the assembly.
He, therefore, appealed to residents of Tema Manhean to help the assembly provide the needed structures and the development for the community.
The forum, which had the objective of educating the people on the need to pay their tax, took a different turn when residents complained about the indiscriminate erection of structures, pollution, faecal flow, garbage and inadequate drains, blaming the assembly for a lack of supervision .
The Principal Field Officers of the Tema Metropolitan NCCE, Mr Enoch Adjei Mensah and Mr Alex Nii Annang, in their submissions, called on the people to report to the assembly anybody whose activities resulted in the creation of unsanitary conditions as well as those who erected structures on water courses and built without permit.
Mr Adjei Mensah stated that ignorance of the bye-laws had created room for cheating and exploitation by some revenue collectors, calling on traders to display their business certificates at their places of operation .
He took the people through some of the bye-laws and emphasised the need for every trader to have a certificate.
Mr Adjei Mensah called on property owners who did not see the need to pay property rates to rescind their decision, because the assembly needed that money to make the environment suitable for habitation.
Mr Alex Nii Annang disclosed that the TMA had set up a drains maintenance committee to ensure that all drains in the metropolis were cleared and new ones constructed to conform to expected standards.
The Tema Mantse, Nii Adjei Kraku, who chaired the forum, commended the NCCE for taking up the task of educating the people on their responsibilities.
Nii Kraku appealed to the people in the Tema Traditional Area not politicise issues of development, but rather support the government to meet its ideals for development.