By Judith Ugwumadu | 21 January 2015

Zambia is making substantial progress implementing its public financial management reform programme, but more needs to be done, particularly on tax collection from the mining industry, treasury secretary Fredson Yamba has said.

In August, the Zambian government officially launched its $30m multi-donor PFM programme, backed by a three-year grant from the governments of Finland, Germany, the UK and the World Bank.

Issuing an update on the programme this week, Yamba said he wanted to ensure ‘mutual confidence’ in tax matters between the extractive industry investors and the country’s 15 million-strong population.

He confirmed that a joint collaboration between the Zambia Revenue Authority and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to develop a robust mining sector monitoring mechanism had been approved.

The total fund for this project is K64m ($10.2m), of which K39m ($6.1m) has come in a grant agreement from the Norwegian government, he said. A further K12.6m ($2m) will come from the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (a fund supported by the World Bank), while the remainder will be provided by the Zambian government itself.

Yamba said the agreement ‘would ensure that effective progress was made in tax revenue administration’.

He also said that work on the Planning and Budgeting Bill had progressed and that a draft would soon be ready. An electronic procurement system would also be introduced at the Zambia Public Procurement Authority, consistent with the government’s goals of reaching higher levels of financial governance.

‘Introduction of an electronic procurement system at ZPPA will result in the comprehensive improvement of project implementation and quicken the pace at which the benefits of governments development initiatives accrue to the public,’ Yamba said.