The Vice President of Sierra Leone, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has said that the local councils are a critical stakeholder in revenue mobilization and delivery of effective services to the people.
Jalloh made this remark in his keynote address at the two-day consultative workshop on enhancing efficient revenue mobilization and administrative in local councils held at the Bank of Sierra Leone Complex in Freetown on Friday September 20, 2019.
According to the Vice President, the government has expended huge resources to capacitate the various councils in the country by building infrastructure and providing funds to run the councils to push government’s social programs. He however noted that there is need for a methodological shift where by local councils will depend less on the central government and focus more on mobilizing its own resource.
The Vice President called on the councils to look at the new drive within the lenses of what is being done at the center in terms of aggressive revenue mobilization and disciplined public expenditure. He encouraged local councils to build the local strategic partnerships required to bolster their spaces and opportunities to generate more revenue.
In the sane vein, the Minister of Finance Jacob Jusu Saffa said that the government will support actions that will enhance the effective functioning of councils to mobilize revenue at local level. He said that his Ministry is working with both local and chiefdom councils to determine their full revenue potentials.
He said that revenue mobilization is part of the government utmost priority to devolve functions.
Minister of Local Government, Mr. Tamba Lamina said fund disbursed to local councils for entrusted functions are tied in line with the law, adding that this itself restricts local councils as these sector allocations may not necessarily correspond to local priorities. He noted that source revenue is critical as it allows councils to allocate and spend resources in line with priorities.
He said self-government of local councils is key element of decentralization, adding that this could only be archived when local revenues meaningfully contribute to local economic development.
He urged local councils to prioritise own source revenue mobilization.
He said they are aware of the effort councils are making in the area of revenue mobilization, noting that despite these efforts, the result in terms of actual revenues collected is far below potential and grossly unsatisfactory.
He reiterated that, they are aware that some of the challenges of local revenue mobilization have to do with their laws, policies as well as guidelines and procedures for collection and sharing revenue.
He said to put a stop to that, they will work collaboratively with the Ministry of Finance and other relevant ministries, department and agencies to identify and streamline the necessary laws. He believes that changes will be reflected in the revised laws and policies.
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