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Misheck Sibanda

From Oliver Kazunga in Victoria Falls
THE government has moved to enhance public service delivery and financial management with 11 service applications now accessible online following the launch of the Public Finance Management System.

Chief Secretary to President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, said in a speech read on his behalf by the principal director Solomon Mhlanga at the ongoing African Tax Administrators’ Forum on Information Communication Technology in Victoria Falls that improved public service was critical for vibrant economic growth.

“To date there’re more than 11 e-government applications that have gone live for all projects that are riding on the already existing Public Finance Management System (PFMS) hardware infrastructure and Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) licences,” said Sibanda.

The applications cover portfolios such as the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement, which now offers land and information management systems and application for land service online.

Sibanda said the system has a number of modules including one on real estate, which offers an integrated real estate management solution with functionalities such as land inventory database, land acquisition, gazetting, land allocation as well as estate management that handles billing and land contract offers or leases.

Also included is online liquor licensing and processing system that falls under the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing.

“This e-application enables citizens to submit their applications for liquor licences online. The citizen is also able to track his or her application online through the use of a unique reference number,” said Sibanda.

The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development now has an online prospecting licence application and processing system.

The facility enables the applicants to get online service such as general requirements for prospecting licences online, submission of application forms, tracking of progress of applications.

The approach reduces the turnaround time for processing applications as well as providing timely decision-making and a holistic view of the prospecting miners and the mining industry as a whole.

Sibanda said African countries should focus on modernising public sector management systems to deal with corruption and other sophisticated sub-terranian vices.

“The importance of the subject matter of this conference, which is focusing on the use of ICTs in the management of tax revenue, is coming at the most opportune time in today’s globalised village where the citizenry is conscious of their rights and is demanding efficiency service delivery from governments.

“At the same time, corruption and other sophisticated sub-terranian vices such as money laundering, transfer pricing, trade mispricing and other tax evasion malpractices have resulted in net financial losses to the African continent at a time when these financial resources are needed most for the development of our countries,” he said.

Sibanda said such situations require collective leadership approaches anchored on modernised public sector management systems across the board.

These developments, he added, require tax administrators to share and exchange experiences and come up with more innovative measures to combat forces that were bent on reducing the revenue base of economies.

“Advancements in ICTs can’t leave out revenue administrators because of the pivotal role they play in promoting sustainable socio-economic growth and development through resource mobilisation. You definitely deserve to move in tandem with the times and this can only be achieved through the adoption of knowledge-driven technologies such as ICTs,” he said.

The conference ends tomorrow.