By Flavia Ajok
In a bid to boost local revenue collection, leaders and technocrats in Masindi Municipal Council leaders have been trained on using a new digital platform to collect taxes as opposed to using manual methods.
Rogers Nayebare, the Senior Inspector of Local Governments in the Ministry of Local Government says use of manual methods is to be blame for the low revenue collections in the local governments.
Nayebare notes that local governments that have automated their tax systems have tripled their revenue.
He was speaking during the training of councilors and the technocrats of Masindi Municipal Council at Country Inn Hotel on the implementation of the local government revenue management system codenamed E-logrev that has been rolled out in Masindi Municipality.
The training was conducted by a team of officials from the Ministry of Local Government in Kampala.
The automation of tax administration and expansion of the tax base which is being implemented under the Taxpayer Registration Expansion Programme which is a collaboration of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) and the Ministry of Local Government.
Nayebare further noted that automated tax collection helps promote efficiency, transparency, monitoring, and reduces reliance on central government to fund development projects in local governments.
Currently, the automated tax system is being implemented in 27 local governments and according Nayebare, they’re collecting more taxes than when they were using manual methods.
According to Tadeo Opio, the Speaker Masindi Municipal Council, a counselor earns about Shs 100,000 as sitting allowance since they collect only Shs 1.3 billion as local revenue.
Charles Mwijukye, the Principal Inspector of Local Governments from the Ministry of Local Government implored the leaders to explain to the taxpayers the importance of paying taxes using E-logrev.
He challenged the leaders and the tax collectors to always establish the number of the potential taxpayers for easy management.
Francis Businge, the Senior Assistant Town Clerk for Masindi Municipal Central Division also underscored the need for the leaders to mobilize and sensitize the taxpayers since they know them better.
However, the municipal leaders argued that collecting taxes and remitting the same to the central government is unfair, given that they have priorities to fund.
The leaders also complained of the delays by the central government in releasing the money to fund development projects.
