ZRA boosts local online solutions

BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) will continue to partner with local stakeholders in developing online tax solutions to ensure that money is circulated within the economy. Finding a local partner in resolving taxation system challenges will assist to circulate the money within the economy, says ZRA Commissioner General, Kingsley Chanda. ZRA partnered […]

ZRA boosts local online solutions
BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) will continue to partner with local stakeholders in developing online tax solutions to ensure that money is circulated within the economy. Finding a local partner in resolving taxation system challenges will assist to circulate the money within the economy, says ZRA Commissioner General, Kingsley Chanda. ZRA partnered with the Copperbelt University (CBU) in creating the current online tax system. Mr Chanda said such partnerships provided employment for local programmers and other supporting experts. He was speaking yesterday when Minister of High Education, Brian Mushimba, visited the Tax-on-line project site for the ZRA innovation Hub in Lusaka. “The old system was not scalable so with huge data it started to compromise the integrity of the data. The new system is 100 percent under the control of locals so resolving of issues becomes easier. Taxpayer experience is enhanced as the system is more robust,” Mr Chanda said. Mr Chanda explained that the old TaxOnline was costly saying support costs were between US$1.5m to US$2 million while implementation was over US$8 million. He said lack of source code to the system was experienced and that as a result, all changes were slow to implement and expensive and rarely met the requirements. ZRA, Mr Chanda said, would continue to innovate into other areas of its operations and build from the momentum created with TaxOnline II. He said ZRA would also continue with its increased linkages and collaborations with other stakeholders while creating a pipeline for local talent and also keep the money in Zambia And Mr Mushimba commended the ZRA and the CBU for coming up with an innovation solution called Tax-on-online II project. Mr Mushimba said the project that the two Government institutions had undertaken demonstrated that most answers to the challenges that Zambia was facing could be found with home grown solutions. He hoped that with such local collaborative efforts, the two institutions would be able to develop an automated customs system that could meet the expectations of ZRA and the general populace.   “As the Tax-on-line II project enters its post implementation phase I wish to emphasize the fact that this should mark the beginning of the collaboration between your two institutions,” he said. Dr Mushimba said the innovation had received a lot of positive feedback from the public as it had eased the way the public interacted with ZRA for tax purposes. This, he said, showed that locally bred innovations were usually effective in addressing the unique challenges that respective countries faced. The Sun