EXECUTIVE REMARKS ON THE CITIES DIALOGUE ON REVENUE ENHANCEMENT

KCCA is glad to partner with the USAID-Domestic Revenue Mobilization for Development (DRM4D), the Resource Enhancement and Accountability Program (REAP) of Ministry of Finance, the Alliance of City Mayors, Civil Society Organizations, relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies to support revenue enhancement initiatives aimed at strengthening the tax culture, enhancing voluntary compliance and sustainably increasing domestic revenues in order to create fiscal space for public spending to enhance service delivery.

We feel it’s a great honor to host this national dialogue on revenue mobilization and service delivery in Cities. It is an opportunity to come together and share common gains and challenges in administering our cities.

Kampala has had significant strides in increasing the revenue in the City from Ugx 35Bn in 2011 to Ugx 93Bn in FY2021/2022 yet the full potential is yet to be realized. There is need for increased compliance by tax payers and elimination of the bottlenecks hindering realization of the full potential of our Capital.

KCCA believes that our challenges are not very different and may thus require similar solutions. Indeed, feedback from engagements held by the DRM4D with various city political leaders and senior management indicated that in almost all cases, cities appear to have similar constraints which have resulted in under performance in both revenue mobilization and service delivery.

Thus, the dialogue intends to;

1. Obtain views on legal reforms proposed by KCCA to various local revenue mobilization laws and regulations
2. Reflect on challenges of the Treasury Single Account to revenue mobilization
3. Share city to city experiences on organizational structure and devolution of political and administrative powers to lower units
4. Discuss the state of service delivery in cities and agree on way forward
5. Discuss funding gap challenges

I believe that through this dialogue we can start a productive advocacy and synergy to be able to significantly improve locally mobilized resources for service delivery.