Locational factors for local revenue mobilisation in a Peri-urban municipal area around Accra, Ghana

Fiscal decentralisation has been an important tool for local governance and development for many countries in Africa, in the last five decades. In many African countries, decentralized governance was adopted as a way of expanding grassroots participation and generating local resources for development without a consensus on ways to mobilize revenues by local governments. After over three decades of Ghana's decentralisation reforms, it is becoming apparent that local government units in strategic locations have peculiar advantages as well as challenges in mobilising local revenue. Using the Awutu-Senya East Municipal Area, this study explores the locational dynamics of Peri-urban municipalities in mobilising internally generated fund (IGF). The study adopted qualitative methods, including review of financial reports of the Municipal Assembly, interviews of key informants, officials of the finance department and revenue mobilisation unit; selected contracted revenue collectors and operators of local businesses. The study revealed locational influencers of revenue mobilisation to include increasing property values due to rapid peri-urban growth; upsurge of satellite businesses; creations of new municipal areas and leakages in internal revenue mobilisation, due to continuously changing boundaries. While the study resonates with emerging literature on local revenue mobilisation, it departs in its re-examination of geographical advantages and setbacks.