The Mbale City Council is struggling to realize the projected revenue for the financial year 2022/2023. The city authorities projected to raise over shillings 5 billion from local revenue. But one week into the fourth quarter of the financial year, the city only shillings 1.6 billion has been collected.
Ambrose Ochen, the Mbale City Clerk says that they are struggling to ensure they realize the revenue as it was projected during the budgeting process. According to him, the city’s main sources of revenue like property rates and the market are having challenges which the authority is trying to streamline.
“We are trying to have order in the market, government invested a lot of money in that market but it is not helping us, as a city we have come up with a strategy on how to create order within the city” he said.
Mbale City has in the past struggled to collect local revenue. In the previous two financial years, the council suffered shortfall of more than two billion Shillings in local revenue collections. For example, in the financial 2021/2022, it collected 900 million shillings out of a projected 3.5 billion Shillings. In 2017/2018 only 2 Billion Shillings was collected instead of the 3.9 billion that was projected.
According to Ochen, the projections of a financial year if given political will can be realized saying that the market alone is capable of giving over 500 million shillings in a particular financial year.
There is a dispute between the Mbale City authorities and property developers within the city over the collection of property rates taxes.
Over the last 10 years, the city has been operating without an evaluation role, a basis for which the property rate taxes are determined. Evaluation of properties within the city was last conducted in 2006 which is against the law which requires that evaluation of properties is conducted after every five years.
“It is until 2021 when the USAID Domestic Revenue Mobilization for Development project came in to support us that we have been able to have this new evaluation role with new valuation rates” Mabala said.
The dwindling local revenue within the city has also attracted the attention of the Mbale City Public Accounts Committee.
The Mbale City Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Rogers Kimaswa said that the problem of low local revenue started when the city failed to have an evaluation. He notes that the technical leaders of the city have instead decided swindle the funds especially those who are supposed to enforce the collection of the revenue.
“Many of the technocrats who are supposed to enforce the collection of these funds instead connive with the tax payers to deny the council the revenue, some of them own companies that collect these revenues no wonder we can’t even realize half of the money estimated in the budget” he said.
AbdulAziz Sharaf, the Chairperson of the General Purpose Committee said that they have a problem of the town agents who take bribes from the tax payers. He said they extort the people within the field to under value the properties which are supposed to generate the revenues.
“The town agents are thieves, they extort money from our people and this money does never reach the coffers of council which is why we are struggling to raise the revenue. This has made it hard to offer the services in fact the councilors have also not received their allowances for over 8 months as a result of lack of local revenues” Aziz said.