Rationales for and policy implications of implementing semi-autonomous revenue authorities in sub-Saharan Africa

Following independence, revenue administrations in most sub-Saharan African states were part of the standard government hierarchy, commonly placed under the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and consisting of several distinct departments. This, however, started to change in the early 1990s when Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authorities (SARAs) were frst introduced in the region. Such agencies combine all government revenue administration into one unifed body, operating outside the government hierarchy with some degree of autonomy (Fjelds-tad 2014, p. 186; Fjeldstad and Moore 2008). Often, revenue administrations are presented dichotomous as either being a SARA or not. However, SARAs are diverse administrations due to, for example, diferences in implementation and degrees of autonomy. Therefore, SARAs should be understood as a continuum where some have more/less autonomy than others (Kidd and Crandall 2006, p. 13). These diferences lead to why and how SARAs were implemented and what implications this has for their efect. Furthermore, it places SARAs within the larger public administration literature concerning non-majoritarian institutions such as central banks and regulatory entities (e.g., Gilardi 2002).

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Published in: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003143840-23