Govt. to upgrade defective RAMIS amid opposition from IRD unions

The Treasury will submit a Cabinet Paper next week to upgrade the Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS) over three years at a cost of several billion rupees.

The upgrade is being undertaken in line with the International Monetary Fund’s instructions to increase the government’s tax revenue. Inland Revenue Department (IRD) unions, however, oppose the upgrade, claiming it would cost as much as Rs. 7 billion. They claim it will be a further waste of public funds given that the government has already spent Rs. 10 billion on RAMIS, though it has failed to bring about the desired results.

Inland Revenue Service Union Joint Secretary H.A.L. Udayasiri said the RAMIS system was a failure for several reasons. This included the inability to obtain information needed by officials correctly and on time, the inability to obtain information related to default taxes and tax credits, the inability to obtain tax reports, and the inability to be user-friendly. He noted that the foreign company responsible for the development of the RAMIS system had so far been unable to provide solutions to these primary issues.

A senior Treasury official acknowledged there were concerns but said that, given these concerns, they were looking to initially upgrade the RAMIS system over one year, at a cost of about Rs. 2 billion. The plan is to merge the systems of the three main revenue generation departments, namely the IRD, Sri Lanka Customs, and the Excise Department, to establish a new single system coming under the Finance Ministry.

Meanwhile, the Treasury is also due to submit another Cabinet Paper to appoint an independent expert committee to submit a technical feasibility and financial productivity report of the Integrated Treasury Management Information Systems (ITMIS) before entering into an agreement for its maintenance for this year. ITMIS is already being used by 163 central government spending heads, and the roll-out of the core functionalities of the system to all 171 spending heads is expected to be completed by this month.

The Treasury is also seeking Cabinet approval to pay more than Rs. 357 million to a Canadian firm that owns property rights for the software used in the system and a local company that is in charge of infrastructure maintenance. Both firms are to be paid for the application operations and maintenance they delivered in full without a formal contract extension from December 8, 2022 to December 7, 2023.