As government has tasked the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) to collect an extra 70 billion Kwacha before March 31, 2024, the commission has motivated its team by awarding outstanding stations so as to make the extra target a reality.
According to MRA Commissioner General John Bizwick, who was speaking on Monday, 15 January, 2024 during an awards ceremony to outstanding MRA stations, government has increased Authority’s revenue target by K70 billion which is expected to be collected from now to March at the end of 2023 fiscal year on March 31, 2024.
Bizwick said the extra target will now see the Authority collecting K245 billion in this January from K218 billion, while in February, it is expected to collect K174 billion from K155 billion and K199 billion in March this year from the previous target of K176 billion.
While expressing confidence to meeting the K70 billion extra target, Bizwick said the Commissioner General’s Awards to MRA staffers are aimed at motivating his team to work extra harder so as to make the dream a reality.
“From the mid year budget which the minister presented a month ago, the allocation revenue collection from MRA is increased by K70 billion, so, we need just to energize members of staff to collect that addition K70 billion. These are some of the measures we are taking to make sure that the people work hard so that we are able to collect the extra K70 billion and I’m very sure that we should be able to collect that amount,” said Bizwick.
On what contributed to the strong performance of tax collection in the nine months of 2023, the Commissioner General attributed the successful collection to a hardworking spirit of staff members and further said nowadays, more taxpayers are becoming tax compliant than in the previous years.
“At MRA we are working as a team, members of staff are focused on their mission because we are there to collect revenue. So members of staff are working much harder and let me through this interview, congratulate them. But also we have to realized that more taxpayers are becoming more compliant. So it’s much easier to do the collection.
“But we have also closed several loopholes, which were there, smuggling. We haven’t closed entirely, but there are areas which we are looking at. But also there’s a strong performance from some of the players, taxpayers. banking and financial services, manufacturing like Illovo, all those have done well, the telecoms have done so well so far. So, those are also driving a good performance,” he added.
During the awards ceremony, Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) Karonga and Biliwiri stations, won the Rising Star award, while the Hat Trick award went to Zomba, Dwangwa, Kasungu, Blantyre, Karonga, Mzimba, Mulanje stations among others and the Relegation Threatened award went to Salima, Mangochi, Mchinji, Chisinga, Mqocha and Nayuchi stations.
In the other hand, the Large Taxpayer Office (LTO) emerged the overall winner and won the Golden Boot Award and the deputy commissioner responsible for LTO, Rose Ngwira, attributed their success to teamworking spirit.
