Maun business community has welcomed the E-services introduced by Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) which aimed to improve service delivery.
They said the new system was a step in the right direction as it would fast track services and also reduce congestion at BURS offices.
They welcomed the system during an interactive meeting organised by BURS to sensitise the business community about the initiative and to get feed- back from them.
The chairperson of Maun Business Botswana Council, Mr James Evans expressed happiness that what they had been advocating for had finally been implemented.
He said they had been advocating for E-Government strategy over the years adding that the system enhanced transparency, accountability and good governance making government more result oriented, efficient and customer centric.
"This is provided through the universal access to services in a convenient and reliable way through the use of Internet," he added.
Mr Evans said as business community, they supported the initiative as it would enable tax payers to fulfill their obligation hassle free thus encouraging tax compliance.
He said the system would increase tax collection which contributed to the increment in government revenue that was used for economic development.
In addition, he said the E-services would eliminate manual work which in many cases was prone to human error and also reduce number of people who normally flock the BURS offices.
Mr Evans said the initiative provided immediate data, consistency and integrity adding that the business operators would also experience other objectives with the system.
He said as Business Botswana, they were not only interested in growing businesses but they found it fit to partner with agencies such as BURS to ensure that businesses complied with the tax laws.
He encouraged the business community to fully utilise the service in order to achieve its intended purpose noting that a lot of money had been invested to develop the system.
For her part, an official from BURS, Ms Opelo Mabua told the gathering that there was no reason to go to their offices as they had delivered what the business commmunity had been longing for.
She said the initiative was meant to enhance efficiency and urged all to take it up as it had all the services.
She explained that to access the service, they had to register , adding that they could also appoint other users under their account.
Ms Mabua explained all the steps to be followed to access the system and urged all to come up with passwords that they would remember all the time.
However, some attendants asked about the penalties if someone failed to pay tax return.
They argued that the penalties should be applied both sides not at the customer only citing that at times the office took long to refund the customer.
They also questioned the issue of verification noting that traditionally the office used to put a stamp on the papers to ensure one had paid and wanted to know about the on line services.
In response, they were told that an acknowledgement letter would be sent via email but they were not happy with the answer as they argued that the letter would not help if they had a case before court.
The gathering was told that currently the government was working on the legislation of E-Government.
Some believed that the initiative could have been implemented after the legislation was finalised.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Esther Mmolai
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 30.08.2016
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