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PS Mwakapugi identifies revenue collection bottlenecks in mining
2008-05-14 09:59:17
By George Ramadhan, PST, Mwanza
Thin expenditure budget allocated to the Ministry of Energy and Minerals has been contributing to the failure by the ministry to collect proper government revenue.
The ministry`s Permanent Secretary, Arthur Mwakapugi, said this yesterday here when he was opening a five-day workshop on public finance management and customer service.
The workshop is attended by accountants and mineral officers from the ministry who work in the lake zone.
Mwakapugi identified shortage of qualified accountants at mineral centres, necessitating the government to use apprentices in collecting government revenue, as another reason for the failure.
He said uncollected government revenue from the minerals sector has, to some extent, forced the government to continue operating on a donor dependent budget.
The PS said that was the reason why his ministry received a poor performance report from the Controller and Auditor General in 2006/2007.
He added, however, that apart from the fact that the ministry of Energy and Minerals was being allocated a thin budget, there was also rampant flouting of purchase and payment rules and regulations.
He said, for example, that there have been a long standing problem of records and receipts for expenditure and payments in time and purchases of materials and services without following laid down procedures.
He said it is because of the anomalies that the ministry organised training workshops for accountants and those involved in revenue collection in order to equip them with skills and tools to enable them perform their job efficiently.
The PS said the objective was to be able to collect enough revenue to cover the entire expenditure budget and later to have surplus to cover a larger percentage of the development budget.
Mwakapugi challenged the participants to suggest an incentive scheme for those who will exhibit personal initiative and effort to collect over and above the budgeted revenue target.
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