Revenue mobilization and service delivery of local governments in Uganda: a case of Bugiri municipality, Bugiri district

Abstract

The studyis to examine the role of revenue mobilisation on the service delivery of local governments in Uganda using Bugiri municipality as a case study. It aimed at examining how revenue collection has enhanced infrastructure development in BugiriMunicipality, assessing how revenue allocation has ensured provision of quality services in BugiriMunicipality and examining how revenue monitoring has ensured value for money in Bugiri Municipality. The study a descriptive research design; the data was categorised under both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study population was 150 and a sample size of 109 respondents of which only 99 participated. Results revealed that the most effective contributor to service delivery is revenue monitoring (Adjusted R Square of .495%), followed by revenue allocation (R Square of .433%) and the least contributor is revenue collection (Adjusted R Square of .253%). The test also revealed that Bugiri Municipality’srevenue mobilisation has a statistically significant positive relationship with service delivery since all p values were below the alpha of 0.05 and as such the null hypothesis was rejected. The study concluded that revenue mobilisation greatly influences local government performance. The study from the regression analysis revealed that there was a statistically significant relationship between the study variables.The use of the allocation and monitoring techniques to control local authorities ‘funds and guard against over or under expenditure would be a critical element in management. The study suggests that that revenue collection in local government should be privatized by giving out tenders to individuals or companies to collect revenues on behalf of local government to reduce the increasing rate of tax defaulters and constituting enforcement teams to check businesses that have failed to pay taxes and penalize them accordingly to increased revenue mobilization.