Revenue Collection and Service Delivery in Garowe Local Government-Puntland, Somalia

ABSTRACT This research work was based on the revenue collection and service delivery in Garowe Local Government-Puntland, Somalia. The objectives of the study were to examine the challenges faced by authorities in the collection of revenue, to examine how service delivery could be improved and to establish the relationship between revenue collection and service delivery in Garowe Local Government, The researcher used descriptive and exploratory survey research designs based on results from questionnaires, interviews and observation. Both qualitative and quantitative research designs were used in this study. Qualitative data were obtained through questionnaires, interviews and observation while quantitative data were obtained through computation and analysis. A sample size of 100 was from Garowe Local Government. The raw data that were collected from the field were scrutinized, and analyzed by editing, coding and employing descriptive statistics in order to give more meaning to the data. Findings showed that there were low local revenue collection in Garowe Local Government and this has been due to the harshness of tax collectors, high administrative expenses corruption practiced by revenue officers, inadequate sources of revenue, political intervention like tender defaulters who supported politicians during campaigns are being protected by tax authorities, poor enforcement of rules and procedures of collecting revenues, tribalism, etc. Moreover, the research findings showed that even though most of the challenges were inherent in the structures of the Local Government, they were not beyond control. It showed that low or poor revenue administration within the division could be improved by implementing various policies, such as motivate the tax authorities, check on political interference and finally, findings showed that there were a relationship between Local revenue collection and service delivery is very strong and positive, that is 0.994** significant at the 0.01 level. The researcher concluded that although 75% of the local revenue collected is channeled towards expenditure on delivery of services, 25% of the local revenues collected is misused by some of the administrators involved in planning for the revenues collected and thus strong measures have to be put in place to reduce the misuse as will be seen in the recommendations. The researcher recommended that revenue collection in Garowe Local Government should be privatized by giving out tenders to individuals or companies to collect revenues on behalf of Garowe Local Government Local Government to reduce the increasing rate of tax defaulters; as well enforcement teams should check businesses that have failed to pay taxes and penalize them accordingly.