Mbozi district council orders sacking of 17 civil servants
Mbozi. The Mbozi District Council on Sunday, October 29, directed the district executive director to sack 17 civil servants and suspend two revenue collection officers for dereliction of duty.
The decision was reached during the full council to evaluate the quarterly financial report of the district council.
Council chairman Erick Ambakisye revealed on Sunday that the servants included healthcare providers, drivers, village executive officers and community development officers.
Commenting about the suspended revenue collection officers, Mr Ambakisye further said the measure was issued purposely to improve officers’ accountability.
“Our target is to collect Sh600 million in every quarter, but up to the end of the first quarter, we had collected only some Sh54 million (5 per cent of the target),” he said.
He further accused the suspended officers of failing to exercise their duty effectively.
For his part, Igamba Ward Councilor Exaudi Kibona supported the disciplinary measures taken, saying the move would serve as a lesson to the remaining public servants to ensure that they undertake their jobs diligently.
In addition, acting Mbozi district executive director Lauteri Kanoni explained that the local authorities missed the revenue collection target because the village and ward executive officers were not using the Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFD) but were using manual books.
“We made impromptu assessment and found out that most of village and ward executive officers did not use EFDs when collecting revenues, this is one of the reasons why we failed to meet the target,” he said.
Furthermore, Mr Edwin Michael, one of the revenue collection officers said the failure to remit tax collections by the collectors was one of the main challenges his department faced.
He further established that his department has been obliged to closely monitor the collectors regularly hence prompting the failure to fully achieve the revenue target.
