ZRA exceeds its targeted revenue in the first half of the year

The Zambia Revenue Authority says it has in the first half of the year collected 48 billion kwacha worth of revenue .

ZRA Acting Corporate Communications Manager Oliver Nzala says due to improved technology the first half revenue collection exceeded the institution’s target by K 2 billion.

On the sidelines of Agriculture and Commercial show in Lusaka, Mr Nzala has cited improved technology and different compliance initiatives the institution has incorporated.

And Mr. Nzala is confident that the annual target for revenue collection of K 91 billion will be met by the end of the year.

He linked the improvement to the increase of VAT refund allocation by Government from 850 million kwacha to K1.35 billion per month.

“We were fortunate enough that the Government allowed to increase our allocation and this is good for our business people.

“ From K 850 million, now we have an allocation of about 1.35 billion kwacha every month to refund our people in the business sector so that the economy keeps running and those in the business sector have enough capital to inject in their businesses, in the long and short term are able to pay taxes,” Mr. Nzala said.

Meanwhile, ZRA says this year’s theme which is “Innovation through technology”, is in line with the Authority’s resolve to embark on a digitization.

Mr Nzala says ZRA is currently working on the 271 challenges that were found on the online system.

He said in the next few weeks, the challenges will have been rectified.

“We did an audit and discovered that the system had that number of challenges. Gradually, the team has been working to resolve those challenges on the system, For example, the Accounting module, we are anticipating that by the end of September, we will not have challenges to do with the module,” he said