Nkhotakota sets pace in revenue collection

Nkhotakota District Council has, within three months, more than doubled its revenue collection courtesy of its new initiative dubbed Efficient Strategic Revenue Collection.

The initiative lives up to the requirement by National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC).

Nkhotakota district commissioner (DC) Blessings Nkhoma said the stock-taking that his office conducted revealed that low revenue returns were largely as a result of vendors plying their trade in undesignated places, ignoring the available flea market.

The DC said the situation was negatively affecting the council’s budget as some businesses were being run unregistered and unmonitored, which resulted in little revenue collection.

“Insufficient funds due to low revenue collected have been affecting our budgets, resulting in failure to pay our direct employees and settle basic bills,” said Nkhoma.

This necessitated the development of a strategy by the council to engage business operators to find out why they were ignoring established structures in plying their businesses.

“We also needed to convince minibus operators, bicycle-taxi operators and motorcycle taxi operators to operate from the established depot,” explained Nkhotakota director of planning and development Ben Matengeni Tonho.

He said there is now mutual understanding between business operators and the district council to the extent that the latter has collected K38.6 million from July to August this year which is more than double the collection made last year during the same period.