Revenue collection should be automated says Treasury PS

National Treasury Principal Secretary Dr. Julius Muia has expressed the need for a digital based software to track Duty and Value Addition Tax (VAT) in to a bid to check revenue losses.

He said that in this era of digital age, manual tracking of taxes should be done away with noting that the latter encouraged lack of integrity and corruption.

Dr. Muia said that lack of a technology driven software to manage all sectors of the economy poses a great challenge to economic growth due to absence of real-time information.

The PS  noted that the contemporary utilization of manual monitoring of development projects and programmes does not give room to expeditious interventions whenever need arises.

He attributed failure by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to meet set revenue targets to lack of such a system noting that missed revenue targets forces the government to borrow.

“If all revenue due to the government was effectively collected, the ballooning public debt could not have arisen, I urged all eligible taxpayers to ensure that they pay up taxes,” said Dr. Muia.

He said that the National Treasury as a facilitator of development programmes in the country will always endeavour to ensure that public resources, be they from local revenue or from development partners are safeguarded and utilized for intended purposes.

The PS made the remarks on Friday in his office where he received United States of America Deputy Economic Counselor in Kenya Mr. Christian De Angelis who paid him a courtesy call.

Dr. Muia appreciated the longstanding warm working relations between Kenya and the United States and particularly appreciated the development support the US continues to lend Kenya.

Mr. Angelis assured the PS that the US will continue supporting the government to attain economic stability.