From SIFA LUBASI in Dodoma MORE than 160 councils out of 185 have been connected to the Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) machines to improve revenue collection.
This was said here yesterday by a
Permanent Secretary in the President’s Office (Regional Administration
and Local Government (PS-RALG) Eng Mussa Iyombe.
Eng Iyombe’s speech was read on his
behalf by Elina Kayanda, the Director in the Infrastructure Development
department, when closing the 11th meeting of the Tanzania Strategic
Cities Project (TSCP) held here.
Eng Iyombe said the government is keen
on improving tax collection systems in the nation’s councils to increase
revenue to about three times what is currently being collected. He
explained that the 163 councils that have been connected to EFDs are
already linked to NMB Bank and CRDB.
Six other councils have been connected
with Max-Malipo, Tigo-pesa, M-pesa, Airtel Money and other financial
institutions. Eng Iyombe said the move to install EFD machines will see
an increase in domestic revenue collection from the councils and the
Capital Development Authority (CDA), which would in turn improve public
services.
Iyombe added that 140 councils in the
country have been linked directly to the President’s Office (Regional
Administration and Local Government) using the EFD machines.
An expert on the electronic revenue
collection systems from the President’s Office(Regional Administration
and Local Government), Mr Bernard Mabagala, said the ministry continues
with installing EFDs in the remaining councils.
Aside from improving revenue collection
using the EFDs, TSCP is being implemented under the President’s Office
(RALG), World Bank (WB) and Denmark Development Cooperation (DANIDA) in a
project that has seen construction of 141 km of tarmac road across the
country.
The TSCP WB representative, Chyi-Yun
Huang, said the World Bank focuses on infrastructures which directly
touche the lives of people, urging council officials to focus on
priority areas when short-listing projects for funding.
A TSCP project supervisor from DANIDA,
Ms Jemma Ngwale, expressed her satisfaction on implementation of the
project. She added that DANIDA plans to award three councils that did
well during implementation of the project are underway.
TSCP is being implemented in Arusha,
Dodoma, Mwanza, Mbeya, Kigoma Ujiji, Tanga and Mtwara Mikindani. The
project was launched in 2010 and is expected to be completed in
September 2017.
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