David Oscar Dogbe is a Ghanaian reggae artiste
David Oscar Dogbe, a popular creative artiste, has demanded an immediate probe into a lapse in the digital payment system for property rate bills at the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly in the Eastern region.
In a video post on Facebook on March 1, 2025, the Germany-based musician gave a detailed account of how he was demanded to pay bills he had already settled in previous years because the assembly’s online portal was down.
According to him, he has been paying his property bill via the digital payment system of the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly for the past three years.
However, attempts to settle February’s bill were not successful as the portal was down due to connectivity challenges.
Oscar stated that he had the shock of his life when officials of the assembly informed him there were no records of his previous payments, after placing a phone call to the office to ascertain when the portal would be fixed.
Apparently frustrated by the turn of events, the musician has urged the local government minister to institute full-scale investigations into the activities of the assembly.
“Since 2022, I have been paying property rates through an online portal given to us by the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly. I logged into the digital payment system to check how much I owe for property rate this morning but the portal was down. I sent someone to the office only for them to tell him that previous payment cannot be accounted for without physical receipts,” he recounted.
He questioned how a system meant to make the payment of the bills seamless would complicate the lives of the citizenry.
“How do you expect the citizenry to be responsible for your administrative errors? Look, this is not the kind of resetting Mahama promised us. You can’t account for last year’s payments, and now I’m to be blamed for your dereliction of duty? Someone created that portal in the name of New Juaben South Municipal Assembly. Find that person behind the portal to find out where those monies went to. Because, I’m not paying those monies again! Find that person behind the creation of the portal and retrieve your monies,” he added.
VPO/AE
Meanwhile, watch this Ghana Month special edition of People and Places as we hear the story of how the head of Kwame Nkrumah’s bronze statue was returned after 43 years, below: