Madi Okollo District local government has resorted to using digital local revenue collecting in order to boost low revenue through addressing leakages which were prevalent in the previous manual system.
The Integrated Revenue Administration System (IRAS) is an online and mobile application platform that enables local governments and cities to collect revenue through registration, assessment, billing, payment awareness raising for taxpayers, and connecting residents to local governments.
According to information from the district finance department only shillings 450 million was realised as local revenue during the 2022/2023 financial year which is just 1% of the total budget of the district.
The Madi Okollo district Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Kazimiro Ezaruku says that they have adopted the Integrated Revenue Administration System (IRAS) to help to reduce leakages and under declarations of revenue that were common in the previous manual revenue collection system. According to Ezaruku, as a district, they project to raise about Shillings 900 million in revenue in its first year of implementation.
Faima Letiru, the Madi Okollo district speaker believes that the new digital local revenue collection system will help to solve the problem of over reliance of the district on central government transfers which are meagre and often delayed.
Meanwhile, Nick Adutia, the Secretary for Finance for Madi Okollo district says that the technical staff in the district and other lower local government units have already undergone induction on how the digital tax collection system works and he believes the innovation will go a long way in enhancing service delivery in the district.
In 2019, the European Union with support from the World Bank developed the Integrated Revenue Administration System IRAS to purposely cover all local government revenue sources. The system was first piloted in Nansana, Fort portal and Gulu city.
As of October 2023, a total of 124 local governments comprising 9 cities, 21 municipalities and 94 districts have been rolled on the Integrated Revenue Administration System IRAS according to information from the IRAS official website.
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