New TRA boss is thrown in at the deep end

Dar es Salaam. Former Lands Permanent Secretary Mr Alphayo Kidata has been thrown into the thick of things as the new Commissioner General of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).

Appointed Wednesday night by President John Magufuli, he takes office at a most challenging time for the taxman.

He is the second appointee to head the troubled agency in one month, replacing Dr Philip Mpango, who stayed there briefly following the sacking of Rished Bade over a tax evasion scam at the Dar es Salaam Port.

Mr Kidata will be thrust into the limelight as he is expected to carry on the radical changes in TRA to align the agency with the vision of the new President who has declared a personal commitment to root corruption in the country. And no where else is that urgency needed than in TRA. For Mr Kidata therefore, the work is clearly cut out for him. Whether he succeed or not is a matter of time but his appointment, according to analysts familiar with the public service, was not without some soul searching.

Afterall he was presiding over a ministry known for scandals and always in the news over land cartels, demolitions and clashes between farmers and pastoralists fighting over space.

He is not a well known figure but has been described as the type of administrator who could fit the profile as demanded by the new president.

Sources familia with the ministry of lands confide in The Citizen that Mr Kidata was an administrator who worked quietly but with a focus and drive for results.

“He stood firmly against land cartels and cleared them from the ministry in the time that he has served there. He took over from his predecessor Patrick Rutabanzibwa and continued the radical changes, some of which he encountered serious obstacles,” explain a senior civil servant in the ministry who asked not to be named as he was not the ministry’s spokesperson.

Kidata was known to take the mighty headon over land scandals and he will need the same verve to confront deep rooted cartels, that have turned TRA into a cash cow.

His record as hardworking civil servant mmay have led led President Magufuli to settle on him as the man he would entrust with the responsibility of raising the over a trilling shillings monthly revenue target to run the government and fund development projects across the country.

Sources say Mr Kidata was appointed PS in the ministry of Land, Housing and Human Settlement Development two years ago for a specific mission, to fix the rot that had reached unprecedented levels. The ministry has been a flashpoint of corruption practices; officials were directly involved in multiple allocations of plots and resulted into endless land conflicts.

A notorious well-functioning cabal had penetrated the ministry and collided with officials and encroach swathes of lands across the country. In his two years in office, Mr Kidata who is known for his few words but big actions helped in dismantling the cell. Those who have worked with him describe him as strict-to-rule and fair team leader.

His new office is currently marred by graft; it is a rot on its own. Recent Afrobarometer studies list revenue collection officials among the most corrupt public workers in the country.

The most shocking account of TRA’s inefficiency and corruption practices is recent recent revelations of the body’s failure to collect taxes from over 2700 containers in the port of Dar es Salaam costing the government loss of billions of shillings. From the scandal, Dr Magufuli sacked TRA commissioner general Rished Bade who was succeeded by Dr Philip Mpango who on Monday was appointed Monister for Finance.

Based on his rich experience as no-nonsense disciplinarian, it is highly expected for Mr Kidata to steer changes within TRA, improving its working ethics, increase the margin of revenue collection and eventually restore the taxman credibility.

It is however a daunting task to fix things at TRA as recent developments suggest and since President John Mgufuli cracked the whip.