Revenue collectors upgrade skills

This year’s target for Littoral Region is still to be met.

Finance experts in the Littoral Region have observed that the FCFA 34.18 billion target for the 2015 financial year can only be met through combined efforts by supervisory accountants and revenue collectors.

They made the observation on July 3, 2015, during a regional seminar for revenue collectors in Bali, Douala, on the theme: “Optimisation of service revenue collection.”

The seminar sought to optimise the output of service revenue to be ploughed into the State budget. The Littoral Paymaster General, Mbock Jean Pierre, revealed that revenue so far collected this year is much lower than it was in the same period last year. He imputed the drop in public resources to the present national and international situation. It is for this reason that the training focused on organisational and functional aspects of revenue collection offices.

It was clear from the various presentations that the organisation of regional capacity-building for revenue collectors cannot in itself raise the collection of service revenue. The improvements sought for, in effect, require a change of paradigms and values, a reconsideration of behavioural, ethical and professional standards as well as effective monitoring and revenue collection mechanisms, it was noted.

It was proposed that care is needed in implementing legal instruments on revenue collection offices and their daily application by revenue collectors in proper book keeping, use of accounting documents, improving the quality of financial information produced and reducing the error margin, and so on.