Road Traffic explains revenue
The Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) has once again registered increased revenue collection for the month of August compared to the same period last year.
Briefing the Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament in Lilongwe on Wednesday, DRTSS director Jacques Manong’a attributed the increase to the efficiencies resulting from the introduction of the Malawi Traffic Information System (Maltis).
The directorate, which collects non-tax revenue for the government, has a K2 billion target in the 2015/16 financial year that started on July 1 and will close on June 30.
Manong’a said following installation of Maltis, the department had collected K375 million by August 25 compared to K135 million collected during the same period last year.
He said: “With the target of K2 billion, we should have been collecting about K233 million per month, but with the new system, we collected K315 million in July then K375 million by yesterday [August 25] in contrast to K135 million which we collected last year.
“Looking at the trend, we find that we may exceed what we are supposed to collect this year.”
Manong’a admitted cases of theft and corruption at DRTSS, which, he said, Maltis is attempting to arrest.
“We have to admit that those perceptions [of theft and corruption] were there, corruption and fraud is very high at DRTSS, but it has stopped almost completely. But we will continue checking other emerging issues.”
Before introducing Maltis, DRTSS said it found that the number of driving licences and vehicles registered in the system did not correspond with the revenue collected.
DRTSS being a treasury fund remits the surplus of its collections to Treasury after taking its approved budget from the revenue collected.
This means that whatever is collected this financial year, K200 million will be remitted to Treasury, K376 million will cater for salaries and wages while K1.2 billion will cover operations and development.
Unlike the fellow non-tax revenue collector, Department of Immigration, DRTSS is expected to finish paying for Maltis software within seven month.
In contrast, Immigration Department does not pay the contractor directly from its revenue collection and the government owes a contractor for passport books and other consumables $13 million (about K7.1 billion).
The committee summoned DRTSS to explain the sudden jump in non-tax revenue and circumstances which might have led to under-collection in the previous years.
Government derives some of its non-tax revenue from fees for road traffic services and fines which were last adjusted on October 1 2014.
