160 councils get EFD machines

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.