Electronic-Governance and Accountability in Rivers State Internal Revenue Services, 2015-2025

Public revenue administration in Nigeria's subnational governments has long been constrained by manual processes, weak oversight, and limited transparency as well as challenges that e-governance reforms are increasingly expected to address. This study examined the impact of e-governance on public accountability in the Rivers State Internal Revenue Service (RSIRS) between 2015 and 2025. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design while the analytical perspective was anchored on the Technology Acceptance Model. A sample of 142 staff was drawn from RSIRS using purposive and simple random sampling techniques, of which 122 valid responses were retrieved and analysed using descriptive statistics and one-sample t-tests at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that core e-governance tools, Revenue Assurance and Compliance Unit (RACU) digital monitoring tools, implementation challenges, and e-governance's impact on revenue generation and service delivery all had a statistically significant relationship with public accountability, with the e-filing portal and TIN registration system showing the strongest effects among individual tools, and Revenue Assurance and Compliance Unit digital monitoring tools showing the weakest overall impact. Infrastructural deficits, particularly unreliable power and internet connectivity, emerged as the most significant barrier to implementation, outweighing staff resistance to change. E-governance was also found to have significantly improved revenue generation and service delivery, although its effect on public trust remained comparatively modest relative to its operational gains. The study concludes that e-governance has meaningfully strengthened accountability in RSIRS but remains an incomplete transformation, particularly in internal staff oversight and the translation of operational gains into public trust. The study recommends that the Rivers State Government and the Management of RSIRS should work towards strengthening Revenue Assurance and Compliance Unit digital monitoring capacity, investing in ICT infrastructure, institutionalizing continuous staff training, and deepening public-facing transparency initiatives to sustain and extend recorded gains.