Road To Self-Reliance: Tanzania Attains Decades Long High Revenue Record

By Chief Correspondents, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, 16:30 GMT

Tanzania’s tax revenues rose 29.18 percent from 1.335 trillion of last month to the total amount of TZS 1.767 trillion in September 2019, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) said today, a figure that sets a new monthly revenue record in the East Africa’s fastest growing economy.

The increase, highest in the monthly revenue history of Tanzania since the Independence in 1961, and the biggest ever since the creation of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) which started its operations on 1^st July, 1996, is a reflection of the massive transformation work under the reform minded President John Pombe Magufuli.

“These collections amounts to 97.20 percent of our target for the month of September, which is, TZS 1.817 trillion,” said the Commissioner General of TRA, Dr. Edwin Mhede. Monthly revenues averaged TZS 1.3 trillion from TZS 850 billion prior to Magufuli administration.  

Since November 2015, President Magufuli dismissed about 4 TRA bosses, demanding more action on tax collections. Transformation and demand for widened tax sources were extended to improvement in digital ways of tax administration, improvement and efficiency among public parastatals and amplified taxpayers’ awareness.

“The TRA can tell us more secrets on the new record, but looking critically at the economic dynamics in Tanzania, I can confide, the investment in new digital based tax and other revenue collection mechanisms such as the EFDs (Electronic Fiscal Devices) are finally paying off in Tanzania and some other few African countries I know,” says Jonathan Nguma, a Nairobi based tax consultant.