Influence of personnel attributes on revenue collection performance in Tanzanian LGAs: a seemingly unrelated regression analysis

Abstract This study investigates the influence of personnel attributes on revenue collection performance among designated revenue officers working within Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (LGAs), with a focus on three councils Mbeya, Mwanza, and Manyara categorized by the Controller and Auditor General as high-, medium-, and low-performing, respectively. Anchored in Human Capital Theory, the study responds to persistent revenue shortfalls in LGAs, reaching up to 60%, that have been linked to limitations in personnel capacity, education, and job satisfaction. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 400 revenue personnel using structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed using the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model in STATA version 17, enabling the simultaneous estimation of the effects of multiple personnel characteristics on individual performance. The originality of this research lies in its integration of diverse personnel attributes such as education, work experience, age, job satisfaction, capacity, job mobility, and incentives into a single econometric model to assess their combined influence on individual revenue collection performance within the Tanzanian LGA, which remains underexplored in existing literature. Findings reveal that higher education, greater work experience, job satisfaction, and enhanced personnel capacity significantly improve revenue collection efficiency, with personnel capacity emerging as the strongest predictor. Officers aged over 40 and with more than 10 years of experience exhibited notably higher reliability in meeting collection targets, while performance incentives showed mixed effects. The implications of the study suggest that targeted training for less-educated officers, adoption of well-structured performance-based incentives, and promotion of job mobility and mentorship programs could enhance staff competencies, thereby improve revenue collection performance and reduce persistent funding gaps within LGAs. This improvement in revenue capacity can ultimately strengthen service delivery and fiscal sustainability at the local government level.