The tax drive will help improve revenue collection in order to put a stop to the bad performance recorded in 2013.

The Mayor of Limbe I Sub-divisional council in Fako Division, South West region, has appealed to the Council’s supervisory authority to come in and rescue the Council's revenue recovery by instituting a tax drive force.

Mayor Mbua Ro-Danny Mokako was speaking last Friday July 18 during the first ordinary session of the Council dedicated to the examination of the administrative, management and stores accounts for the 2013 financial year.

According to statistics presented by the Mayor, the Limbe I Council projected an estimated budget of FCFA 400,000,000 (Four hundred million) and only recovered FCFA 275,292,088, giving a percentage of 79.9 which mainly came from the Limbe City Council and Additional Council taxes. From this amount, 96 per cent was actually spent, representing FCFA 249,863,228 as against FCFA 260,800,000 programmed for recurrent expenditure.

The Council only spent a paltry FCFA 26,708,848 on investment giving just 19 per cent. The Mayor lamented that not up to FCFA 30 million was recovered by the taxation officials and foresees even a more gloomy future given that the Global tax has been reduced by 50 per cent. On this score, he implores the Senior Divisional Officer to intervene so as to rescue the Council in 2014.

He outlined some investments the council intends to embark on to improve the revenue situation in the coming years.

On his part, the First Assistant SDO of Fako, Mr. Natongo Vincent urged the Council executive to learn from its past mistakes in order to put things straight. He advised that, the Council should take drastic measures to utilize existing revenue sources and own its own investment so as to improve on its revenue situation. He stated that the over FCFA 1 million deficit of expenditure over revenue is not a positive sign.

The SDO also called on the Council to combat urban disturbance and clean drainage systems to avoid floods, amongst others.