Door-to-Door Campaign Doubles Macedonian Municipality’s Tax Base
Little did Mustaf Mustafa know that just a year after finishing his University studies, he’d be in charge of a critical assignment that will have an enormous impact on his community.
“It was a real challenge,” says, Mustafa, Head of the new Finance Department of Vrapchiste. “There we were out in the field performing a task of such great responsibility. It’s no secret that we had very little experience to start with, but we are grateful that the Mayor showed confidence in us.”
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| A USAID Tax Administration Workshop helped the Vrapchiste Municipality
create a property tax database |
Vrapchiste may be small in size (pop. 28 000) but it stands tall when it comes to getting things done. This young municipality proves that what it takes to succeed is clear vision and coordinated team work. Like many Macedonian municipalities, the administrators of this largely agricultural community found themselves with huge challenges when, on the first of July, local municipalities took on far more responsibility for local governance, a process called decentralization.
One of Vrapchiste Municipality’s first projects: creating a new property tax database.
While other municipalities have been overwhelmed by this task, administrators in Vrapchiste rolled up their sleeves, made no complaints or excuses about their limited resources or lack of experience, and accomplished the job in two months. Not only did they do an efficient job, they did a highly effective one—while the old Public Revenue Office database included about 3200 registered tax payers in the Municipality of Vrapchiste, the new database, created by the municipal finance unit, now lists over 6000 tax payers.
Survey lists had to be prepared from scratch, tax bills drafted and printed for distribution.
The team was inspired by a USAID Tax Administration Workshop designed to present positive experiences in local self-government tax administration and to offer possible solutions and actions to overcome difficulties.
“Attending the workshop was the key moment,” says Esat Salai, Vrapchiste’s mayor. “Things started to roll for us afterwards. We learned how to organize our teams, and most importantly, how to identify priorities. The training really hit the target.”
Following the training, the Mayor entrusted a group of young employees with the creation of an upgraded, accurate database of all existing real estate in the municipality. They circulated flyers and held community meetings—and then they went door to door. The survey was conducted by five well coordinated three-member teams responsible for assessing the actual situation and processing the data.
What makes this exemplary is the municipality’s proactive approach. Instead of waiting for experts to instruct them in detail, they took the initiative. At a crossroad between fear of failure or actions and results, they chose the latter.
“Don’t be afraid of doing things,’ says the mayor. “Be active, include the young and use their energy and enthusiasm. Decentralization is a unique opportunity to change things and we must not miss it”.
The tax workshop is a part of USAID’s Decentralization Project which is assisting Macedonia in the development of more effective, responsive, and accountable local government. With the passage of key decentralization legislation, the project works with municipalities to develop the managerial and administrative capacity they need to successfully assume new responsibilities under decentralization.
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