The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Local Government has rolled out the automated Revenue Management System, e-logRev aimed at increasing revenue collections.
The online tool is used for local taxpayers’ registration, payment assessments, e-payment, reconciliation, enforcement, reporting and integration with other government agencies.
The system was launched in 2017 and has been under pilot in two divisions of Jinja Municipality (Walukua and Central) and one division of Kira Municipality (Namugongo). The system was supposed to be rolled out to the entire country in 2018 but this failed due to limited funding.
Charles Mwijuke, the senior inspector for districts in Local Government ministry, says they have assessed the system and given its success during the pilot period of two years, they are rolling it out to the entire country though in a phased manner.
The first phase will involve all divisions of Kira, Mukono and Jinja Municipalities as they look forward for more funding to take on more local governments in subsequent financial years.
Mwijuke says the current manual systems have been meeting challenges of revenue linkages, lack of accurate data among others.
According the Ministry of Finance, local government financing is not sufficient to meet the level of demand for service delivery with most local government finances coming from the central government as conditional grants with limited flexibility for specific local needs.
Statistics also indicate that local revenue collections contributed to the local government budgets has remained low, at less than three percent for district, and seven percent for Town Councils and Municipalities.
David Mukooza Musoke, Namugongo Division Treasurer, believes that the system can help local government improve on local revenue performance.
He notes that during the piloting, the division made strides in local revenue performance for example, on its inception the division which had budgeted to collect shillings 260 million from trading licenses ended up collecting shilling 406 million after registering most of their taxpayers online.
Julius Mutebi, the Mayor Kiira Town Council, says the system is welcome since it will increase transparency in local revenue collection.
