Emma Elekwa
Civil Rights Concern (CRC) has developed a dashboard targeted at addressing various forms of complaints and grievances arising from revenue collection in Anambra state.
Executive Director, Okey Onyeka disclosed this in an engagement with stakeholders themed, “Strengthening fiscal justice for gender equality and tax accountability: ensuring that public resource are raised and spent responsibly, transparently and equitably in Anambra”
He said the meeting centered on the Grievance Redress mechanism in tax justice administration would discuss the existing framework in ̈revenue generation and taxpayers’ challenges.
Expressing concerns over abusive, aggressive and violent approaches of revenue collectors towards taxpayers, Onyeka said such practices were part of issues the dashboard is expected to address.
He said, “There was an assessment of how revenue collection and interest mechanism work in the state. While discussing that report, Anambra scored over 60 percent.
Efficiency gaps
“Although that is not a bad score, but there are so many gaps to address in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, timing, how citizens’ complaints are addressed and other parameters.
“At the end of each quarter, government is expected to look at the dashboard and see if the issues raised have been properly responded to in terms of timing and efficiency.”
CRC boss whose organisation was leading the programme implementation underscored importance of stakeholders active engagement and proper coordination in the exercise.
“These are what CRC and other stakeholders will look at, including finding out if there is need for capacity building for officials.
“These processes are expected to assist government improve on its revenue collection strategy and size occasioned by tax payers’ compliance and reduction in trust deficit.
“We also expect improvement from government in the area of addressing citizens’ grievances and to ensure equitable, transparent and responsible distribution of resources for the benefits of all livelihoods,” he stressed.
Onyeka expressed optimism of the workability of the mechanism with assurances from leadership of Anambra Internal Revenue Services (AIRS) to partner with his group and other stakeholders towards ensuring follow-up to avoid any form of relapse.
