A critical analysis of the sources of revenue and expenditure pattern of local authorities. A case study of Marondera Rural District Council
- Author
- Tizora, Vimbnai
- Title
- A critical analysis of the sources of revenue and expenditure pattern of local authorities. A case study of Marondera Rural District Council
- Abstract
-
The study was carried out to critically analyze the sources of revenue and expenditure pattern of local authorities. A case study of Marondera Rural Council. The main goal of this research was to determine the impact of revenue sources and expenditure patterns on quality of services provided. The secondary objectives were to identify the revenue sources and expenditure pattern of MRDC, to analyze the problems associated with revenue generation and the reason for inadequate funds at MRDC and to establish strategies to mitigate challenges associated with revenue generation. A descriptive research design was used on a sample of 61 MRDC’s staff members chosen through stratified random sampling technique. The main research instrument was a questionnaire and structured interviews were also used as a primary data collection method. Data analysis was undertaken using SPSS (version 20), and descriptive and inferential statistics were carried out. The findings indicated that the major sources of revenue for MRDC are licences and fees, rentals of council’s property, plan approval and development fees and rates on property and land. Other sources of revenue that are moderately available are income-generating projects ( Domervale ) grants and borrowings, lease and sale of land, penalties and fines and interest on investment. Lastly the user rates and charges, proceeds from natural resources and supplementary charges are the rarely available sources of revenue of MRDC. The inferential test revealed that The findings revealed that is a significant positive relationship exists between revenue sources and the quality of services provided as all coefficients for the dependent variables were above 0.7 (70%). The findings also revealed that the major problems associated with revenue generation are poor billing, poor debt collection mechanism, inadequate communication with rate payers, lack of power to enforce payments, corruption and embezzlement of funds and political pressure to relax revenue collection leading to liquidity problems. The researcher recommends that in order to mitigate the problems associated with revenue generation MRDC has to invest in training revenue collectors, reviewing the expenditure needs, outsourcing the revenue collection function. Further studies can be carried out to identify the determinants of provision of quality services by local authorities in Zimbabwe.
- Date
- December 2022
- Publisher
- BUSE
- Keywords
- Revenue and expenditure pattern
- Revenue generation
- Supervisor
- N/A
- Item sets
- Department of Accountancy