Tax and accounting system experts believe digitalisation of financial systems will enhance transparency, maximise productivity and ensure compliance – and ultimately enable authorities to secure additional revenue.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in its Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa released this week that automation of tax collections will help regional economies mop up more revenues.

The organisation has predicted growth of about 2.5% for the region, anchored by recovering oil, agriculture and mining production.

In 2016, the World Bank urged Mozambique and Uganda to speedily digitalise and computerise customs clearing platforms to effectively deal with corruption and enhance revenue collections.

The World Bank said in its report Doing Business: Equal Opportunity for All that "the introduction of computerised solutions for processing customs documents—and the general automation of customs clearance - leaves little to the discretion of customs officials, thereby reducing opportunities for corruption."

Although Mozambique had launched an extensive customs reform program in 1995 to modernise the customs department and tackle corruption, the "customs operations did not have any substantial information technology support".

Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are among a few African countries that have already embraced tax filing and payments through mobile devices, using platforms such as SMS and unstructured supplementary service data.

However, officials from revenue authorities in Africa have previously said there are challenges in effectively validating the accuracy of returns transacted through telecommunications platforms.

"The challenge for tax authorities is to validate the accuracy of returns and monitoring of the taxes generated from mobile transactions and telecoms transactions," said one expert addressing a recent meeting of officials from tax authorities in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

Jackie Hussein, the managing member and distributor of accounting and audit platform CaseWare Africa in Zimbabwe said, "It is now a given that organisations that want to stay ahead have to embrace technology" on their accounting and audit platforms.

Technology allows for compliance and transparency in the handling and preparation of accounts and audit functions, she added.