Revolutionization of Revenue Collection with Government E-Payment Gateway System in Tanzania: A Public Value Creation Perspective

Abstract

Through the Ministry of Finance and Planning, the Government of Tanzania implemented the Government Electronic Payment Gateway (GePG) system to provide an e-payment gateway platform in order to improve government revenue collection in the country. As of July 2020, the system was implemented in 660 public institutions and is integrated into 28 commercial banks and 6 mobile money operators. While the system has been widely accepted, evaluation of its adequacy and performance is necessary as many similar initiatives implemented in Africa have failed to deliver the desired outcomes. This study evaluated the performance of the system by drawing success measures based on public value: efficiency, effectiveness, and social value. The study adopted a concurrent mixed research design where the questionnaire was integrated within interviews in a single investigation involving 442 respondents from 271 public institutions in 11 regions in Tanzania. The study found that the use of the system increased revenue collection by 44.28% while reducing the cost associated with revenue collection by 27.10% between 2015/2016 and 2019/2020 in the surveyed institutions. Moreover, the use of the system enhanced the trust between citizens and government, increased transparency and traceability in the process of revenue collection. Nonetheless, the lack of integration of the GePG system with institutional billing systems and the lack of self-service facility in some institutions were found to the challenges. The findings from this study contribute to an understanding of the effectiveness of e-government systems based on public value.