By Mustapha Sesay
The Freetown City Council (FCC) has disclosed that it is owed over Le11billion in tax arrears.
The Council is threatening to take drastic action against property owners within the municipality who are refusing to pay property tax.
At a rare press conference on Tuesday, Mayor Franklyn Bode Gibson told editors of newspapers and other media outlets that the non compliance in terms of tax payment was depriving the Council of much needed revenue. He said only 25 percent of property owners were paying tax to the Council and noted that they had put mechanisms in place to recoup the money owed by others.
“Bad culture and practice have become part of our society,” the mayor lamented, and he vowed: “Next month we will drag people to court to pay our money.”
Mayor Gibson told journalists that the Performance Contract Secretariat had initially asked the Council to use only 30 percent of its annual revenue to pay staff salaries. He said if they went by that directive they would end up laying off 78 percent of the Council’s employees.
Gibson also revealed that prior to his term of office the FCC owed the National Revenue Authority (NRA) some Le20 billion in debt. He said they have been able to pay over 95 percent of that debt since he assumed office.
Gibson said they have also been able to renovate and provided furniture for a number of schools within the municipality and that they were also providing support four healthcare centres across the city. He said as Council they have been very careful in the way they used funds received from government and that all funds received on behalf of ministries, departments and agencies had remained untouched.
The FCC had planned a budget for Le35billion in 2015. Mr Gibson said they couldn’t meet that budget requirement because of the Ebola outbreak. He said they were only able to generate a little above Le 20billion.
Abubakar Daramy, Chief Administrator at FCC, said Part 15 of the 2004 Local Government Act mandates the Council to be accountable and transparent to the public and that Part 7 of the same Act indicates that Council should be partly funded out of the revenue it generates.
He said irrespective of the challenges faced by the Council in terms of revenue collection, they were working to take care of a number of their activities.
(C) Politico 30/03/16
