Revenue Mobilisation and its Management at a Newly Created Assembly: A Case of Kwadaso Municipal Assembly

ABSTRACT

Decentralization is assumed to bring about better efficiency in the distribution of public goods and services at the local level. Interestingly, this acclaimed position of decentralization depends largely on the belief that local governments will in practice exercise much fiscal discretion when it comes to the allocation of resources than the central government. However, to the shock of many, local assembly’s fiscal discretion appears to be very controlled in the sense that most local authorities tend to have limited power even over their own budgets or external sources of funds. Accordingly, this study sought to assess how revenue are mobilized and managed by one of the newly created municipal Assembly in Ghana that is, the Kwadaso Muncipal Assembly.The target population for the study came from all workers within the Kwadaso Muncipal Assembly particularly those working within the revenue collection department of the Assembly. Accordingly, a projected number of 100 employees of the Assembly was targeted as the study population. However, with the sample size, the study used the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sampling table to determine the sample size for 100 targeted population.Accordingly, the sample size for the study stood at 80 based on 5% error of margin and 95% confidence interval. The study distributed a total of 80 questionnaires to the selected officers working within the Kwadaso Municipal Assembly. From the questionnaires distributed, a total of 75 completed questionnaires were returned to the researcher. Nonetheless, out of these received questionnaires, 68 were usable for analysis, giving an effective response rate of 90.66%.The study data was subsequently analyzed using descriptive statistics such as Mean and Standard deviation. Also, inferential statistics such as multiple regression analysis was used to to ascertain the sources of revenue that had a significant impact on the Assembly’s annual revenue. Findings from the study showed that out of the seven revenue sources, only three of them that is, grants, rates and license had the most significant impact on the Assembly’s aggregate annual revenue. Meaning other revenue streams such as, land royalties, fees and fines contribution to the Assembly annual aggregate revenue was minimal. Accordingly, it is recommended to the Assembly to improve its collection approach towards the other revenue streams since improving upon its approach towards these other revenue sources may improve the revenue fortunes of the Assembly.