The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has pledged to support local contractors in line with its current procurement policy which involves awarding contracts to local contractors in order to support them and all sectors of the economy.
Speaking in an interview with Money News, Authority Corporate Communications Manager Topsy Sikalinda said all ZRA businesses will now be anchored on Zambians first, so as to grow the local contractors into bigger organizations.
Mr. Sikalinda disclosed that the Authority has since engaged Zambian contractors who are working on an office block in Chinsali district in Muchinga Province, and Kasama district, Northern Province, while another contractor has completed works on an office block at ECL Mall in Kitwe.
He stated that ZRA is happy and proud of the contractors for the job well done.
“Currently, as Zambia Revenue Authority our procurement procedure or policy is that we will award Zambians first, we want to support the Zambian Contractors, we want to support the Zambians in all sectors.”
“For instance, we now have Zambian contractors doing the new office block in Chinsali in Muchinga Province, we have another one in Kasama. We just completed ECL office in Kitwe and it was done by a Zambian contractor and we are proud of the works,” Mr. Sikalinda said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sikalinda revealed that ZRA has stopped using the Tax Online System which was a foreign based system being managed by a foreign firms and that the authority was paying millions of Dollars to the foreign entities.
He said the Authority decided to build home grown solutions that responds to the real needs of the Zambian economy, by partnering with Copperbelt University to come up with a perfect system that is already being admired by other countries in the region and beyond.
“We decided to make a decision that we can no longer continue on this path, therefore we needed to build our own home grown solution by the Zambians, for the Zambians that responds to the real needs of the Zambian economy.”
“Therefore we had to partner with Copperbelt University, a local organization and we built a perfect system that is already being admired by many other countries in the region and beyond the region.”
He said the countries have already shown interest in procuring the system that was produced for Zambia, a situation he says is good news for the country.