A Chinese-Mozambican consortium, LIS/INSPUR, is now charged with leading the digitisation of Mozambique’s tax collection process, having presented one of the least expensive proposals for modernising the system.

The investment is budgeted at approximately 135 million meticais [around US$2.3 million at today’s exchange rates] over the next five years. Its central objective is to reduce or eliminate paper storage, moving over exclusively to digital.

O País has learned from the Tax Authority of Mozambique (AT) that the provider of this service has extensive experience in the development of electronic tax collection platforms.

LIS INSPUR beat nearly three dozen hardware and software developer companies competing in an international public tender launched in 2016 for the supply, installation, testing, implementation and maintenance of the fiscal computer system.

In addition to Mozambique, LIS/INSPUR has a strong presence in Asia and four other African countries.

In terms of data security, the consortium’s executive manager Calton Madeira guarantees that the taxpayer information stored in the AT system will be well protected, since the standard to be used is the one required worldwide.

“We are comfortable that the level of information security is of a high standard of reliability. In Africa, it is being used in Kenya and Zimbabwe, with great success,” Madeira said.

Justifying the choice of so inexpensive a system, project coordinator Bruno Rodolfo said the winning consortium had given full guarantees of a quality service, accessible to any citizen.

“I don’t think the issue of cost is relevant. What I can say is that we have been able to find an experienced company that will give us full guarantees,” Rodolfo argued at an international seminar on developments for IT service providers in Maputo this Monday.

Madeira said that the reform and modernisation of the tax system was an essential part of improving domestic resources, and would improve accountability and transparency.

“The economic dynamics of recent years requires a response in terms of modernising the tax management processes, with benefits for both the state and the taxpayer,” the Tax Authority director general said.

Rodolfo added that, in the digital era, the use of information and communication technologies for taxpayer and tax management was the only viable alternative for creating an internationally competitive business environment.

It was in this context that AT was carrying out a series of technological modernisation initiatives, such e-taxation, the single electronic window system, the modernisation of taxpayer services and the implementation and operation of a management system for tax machines, he said.

The fiscal machine management system will allow for better management in the area of Value Added Tax and the Simplified Tax for Small Taxpayers, and will also facilitate the use of electronic devices.

“We intend to obtain the maximum possible roll-out of our modernisation projects, as far as the taxpayer is concerned,” he said.

Mozambique’s digital tax collection platform will come into effect in the first quarter of 2019.

Source: O País/ Com