Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority is negotiating with ethio telecom to acquire independent network service. ERCA has requested ethio teleco to install a separate network service for reliable and efficient data transfer from cash register machines installed by taxpayers to its central servers. The project is estimated to cost ERCA about 40 million Birr.

The authority decided to acquire its own network because of the data transfer form cash register machines to the authority’s server is frequently disrupted by poor network connections.

ERCA require businesses to install cash register machines to track transactions in real time. Disruption in the transfer of the data is common and tax payers are complaining because they are unable to get trade license renewals in time without tax clearance.

Since the directives requiring businesses to use ERCA approved cash register machines come to effect in 2010, a total of 50,607 cash register machines have been in use by 45, 367 businesses throughout the country. However, only less than half of these machines are sending real time data to ERCA servers until October 2012.

Source: Fortune