Government to Reverse Policy on Districts Remitting Local Revenues to Treasury

According to the minister of local government, the government is thinking of rolling back an order mandating that districts send the national treasury all locally generated income.

This follows district leaders’ repeated complaints that the directive isn’t delivering services since quarterly releases aren’t being remitted on time.

According to Minister Magyezi, the parliamentary resolution to revoke the order and give local governments back complete autonomy over their taxation and planning was accepted at a recent cabinet meeting.

The Ministry of Local Government under the new arrangement to allow local governments spend their locally collected revenues will require district accounting officers to use automated revenue management system, E-logRev, to wire money to the centre and this according to the government is aimed at increasing revenue

To encourage transparency in accountability matters for public finances, the Ministry of Local Government launched an online service in 2017 that allowed local tax payers to register and make payments online.

Mr. Magyezi has called on district accounting officers to be transparent in all they do, implying that corrupt officials were one of the numerous reasons why local money was transferred to the central government.