The Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly exceeded its revenue target for 2013 by GH¢69,134.32, which represented 8.08 per cent over the previous year.

The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE),  Andrews Sodah, disclosed this in his sessional address at the first ordinary meeting of the fourth session of the fifth Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly at Somanya.

He said the assembly, however, overspent its budget in the same year by GH¢69,507.57, representing 8.13 per cent. According to him,  this figure is the excess amount over the budgeted Internally Generated Fund (IGF) for capital projects.

The MCE said, for this year, the assembly had collected an amount of GH¢241,328.40 from its local sources as of March this year. The figure, he said, represented 25.40 per cent of the targeted annual figure of GH¢950,010.00.

He said the assembly had also received a total of GH¢31,218.68 representing 0.50  per cent for this year.

He gave an assureance that the assembly was determined to make progress and achieve the targets set for 2014.
Falling standard of Education

The Municipal Chief Executive said the falling standard of education in the municipality had been a cause of concern to the assembly. He explained that although the municipality’s performance in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) improved slightly by 15.04 per cent in 2013, following some pragmatic measures put in place, a lot more needed to be done to address the challenge.

Accordingly, the MCE said, the assembly in collaboration with the Municipal Education Directorate would hold separate durbars with teachers at Klo-Agosto, Nekrasov and Somanya to discuss the challenges and determine the way forward.

“It is quite worrying that the huge investment being made into education by both government and the assembly does not reflect in improving student performance”, he added.
Teacher Absenteeism

He disclosed that teacher absenteeism had been identified as one of the key contributory factors of the abysmal performance of pupils in the municipality. He explained that as part of strategies to eradicate that canker, the assembly members were tasked to intensify visits to schools in their electoral areas to check on teacher absenteeism in order to know the challenges and submit reports to the Municipal Director of Education and the assembly for remedial action to be taken.
Game Centres:

Mr Sodah told the assembly members that the activities of game centre operators were also causing harm to teaching and learning in the municipality. To minimise that, he suggested that the assembly,  in conjunction with the police service,  should clamp down on illegal game centres and arrest the operators.

He appealed to the assembly members to join that effort by reporting illegal game centres in their respective electoral areas for appropriate action to be taken, as they were having negative effects on the children of school going age.

Mr Sodah also said to regulate the operations of the game centres, the Municipal Information Officer was tasked to develop a code of ethics for consideration and adoption by the assembly and assured the assembly members that the document would be ready in their next sitting for the consideration.

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