By Mavis Paintsil, Accra
The government is to decentralise the collection of property tax to metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) before the end of this year, the Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, has said.
He said the move would ensure that local assemblies were given stronger financial backing to undertake development projects instead of mostly relying on transfers from the central government.
The Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Banda also said that the government would empower local assemblies to resort to municipal bonds to finance capital projects going forward.
The President promised to decentralise the property taxation system and send resources to the grassroots for balanced and equitable development of the country.
“The people of Ghana gave him an overwhelming majority of votes, so we cannot sleep on this reset agenda,” he said.
The minister said this at the opening of a three-day workshop on property tax administration in Accra yesterday, organised by African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), a collaborative research initiative addressing critical urban development in African cities.
It was on the theme: “Transforming urban property tax administration for improved delivery of valued public goods and services.”
Participants were drawn from ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
They are expected to share best practices and case studies from successful reforms across the continent; explore digitisation experiences and identify strategies for implementing sustainable digital reforms, including fostering collaboration among policy makers, tax administrators, researchers and international organisations to advance property tax reforms.
They are expected to share best practices and case studies from successful reforms across the continent; explore digitisation experiences and identify strategies for implementing sustainable digital reforms, including fostering collaboration among policy makers, tax administrators, researchers and international organisations to advance property tax reforms.
While property taxation is a viable source of revenue for African countries, the sector is challenged by inadequate valuation systems, incomplete property registers, and weak enforcement mechanisms.
The property sector remains underdeveloped, causing the countries to wallow in resource constraints to undertake development projects.
They said that within the context of dwindling donor support, it was important for local assemblies to adopt innovative reforms backed by digital solutions to unleash the potential of the property tax.
She said her outfit would support metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) within the region to deploy innovative programmes to improve domestic tax mobilisation.
Dr Biitir also said that for property tax collection to be effective, there must be depoliticisation of the process.
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