Country systems

Tanzania: the Government Electronic Payment Gateway (GePG)

Last checked 24 October 2026 · 6 sources

Short answer

Tanzania's Government Electronic Payment Gateway (GePG) is a central system that links government institutions to electronic collection channels run by banks, aggregators, mobile network operators and point-of-sale providers ¹. The Ministry of Finance and Planning implemented it ¹. The Public Finance Act 2001, as amended by the Finance Act 2017, requires public money to be collected electronically through GePG ¹. In April 2026 the National Audit Office of Tanzania reported that non-tax revenue had improved but its contribution to GDP stayed below the regional average, and named inefficient collection systems among the causes ⁴.

System: Government Electronic Payment Gateway (GePG) ¹
Implemented by: Government of Tanzania through the Ministry of Finance and Planning ¹
Legal basis: Public Finance Act 2001 as amended by the Finance Act 2017 ¹
Mandate circular: Treasury Circular No. 3 dated 4 September 2017 ¹
Status: Live. Official pages and manuals dated 2017 to 2021 ³
Latest audit opened: NAOT performance audit on non-tax revenue, April 2026 ⁴

What GePG is and who runs it

The official GePG site describes the gateway as a centralized system connected to all available electronic revenue collection channels. It handles electronic payments between the public and the Government ¹. The site lists banks, aggregators, mobile network operators and point-of-sale network providers as payment service providers connected to it ¹.

The Government implemented GePG through the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MOFP) ¹. A Ministry of Finance guide from 2017 says the ministry built the system with partners including the e-Government Agency (eGA). It says banks and mobile network operators were brought in to support the rollout ³.

The Ministry's GePG Management Framework of 2018 sets out why the gateway was built. Before GePG there were no standard revenue procedures. Some institutions' systems could not exchange information, some used agents and some collected cash by hand. The framework calls that earlier collection risky, invisible and costly ².

Legal basis and start date

The GePG site cites the Public Finance Act 2001 as amended by the Finance Act 2017. Under the amendment, all public money shall be collected electronically through the GePG system ¹. The site dates those amendments to 30 June 2017 ¹.

Treasury Circular No. 3 dated 4 September 2017 told Permanent Secretaries to route all government revenue through GePG ¹. The official pages opened for this article give no single launch date for the gateway. The Ministry's GePG document collection includes a user registration form and a joining guide dated 2017 ³.

How a payer uses GePG

A government institution issues a bill. The Ministry's document collection includes a generic billing system for staff of ministries, departments, agencies and local government authorities who collect revenue ³. Each bill carries a control number.

The payer then pays through a connected channel. In one bank's published guide for corporate clients, the client opens a statutory payment screen, enters the Bill Control Number and clicks a validate button to load the bill details before the payment goes for approval ⁶. The Ministry has published manuals for a GePG point-of-sale app (2020) and online payment terms of service for service providers (2018) ³.

Get a bill with a control number from the institution you owe ³
Pay through a bank, mobile money, aggregator or point-of-sale channel connected to GePG ¹
The channel validates the control number before taking payment ⁶

How money reaches government and how it is reconciled

The Ministry published a GePG Reconciliation Tool User Manual in 2021. It describes a web-based tool that matches transactions in bank statements against GePG files. The tool replaced manual ticking of transactions ³. The official pages opened for this article do not describe the settlement accounts or the timing of transfers to the government's accounts.

No fee schedule for payers was found on the official GePG pages opened for this article ¹.

What the Controller and Auditor General found

In April 2026 the National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT) published a performance audit on how the Ministry of Finance managed non-tax revenue collection from 2021/22 to 2024/25 ⁴. Its official summary says non-tax revenue improved but its contribution to GDP stayed below the regional average ⁴.

The summary names the causes as weak institutional arrangements and coordination, limited identification of new revenue sources, unrealistic revenue estimates, inefficient collection systems, and inadequate follow-up and reporting ⁴. It recommends standardising collection and control procedures and setting up a centralised follow-up and reporting mechanism ⁴. The summary does not set out findings on GePG itself.

An earlier CAG report for 2021/22 on 184 local government authorities found own-source collections of TZS 891.84 billion, 102 percent of the TZS 873.9 billion estimate. It found TZS 37.34 billion not collected by 146 authorities, as reported by Bernard Lugongo of the Daily News ⁵.

Common questions

Is it compulsory to collect public money through GePG?

Yes. The Public Finance Act 2001 as amended by the Finance Act 2017 requires all public money to be collected electronically through GePG ¹.

What is a GePG control number?

It is the reference on a government bill. A paying bank validates the Bill Control Number to load the bill details before it makes the payment ⁶.

Who runs GePG?

The Government implemented GePG through the Ministry of Finance and Planning, with the e-Government Agency as a development partner ^1,3.

Does GePG charge payers a fee?

No payer fee schedule was found on the official GePG pages opened for this article ¹.

What did auditors say about non-tax revenue collection?

An April 2026 NAOT audit said non-tax revenue improved but stayed below the regional average as a share of GDP, citing among other causes inefficient collection systems ⁴.

Rules and charges change. Check the official source linked on this page before you pay or travel. Spotted an error? Email hello@revenuecollectionexplained.org.

Sources

How government payment gateways work
What a government payment gateway does, who connects to it, which channels it accepts, national examples and what auditors found about integration.
Control numbers and payment references
How control numbers and payment registration numbers link a government bill to a payment, with Tanzania GePG and Uganda URA rules and audit findings.
Reconciliation of government revenue
How governments match bills, bank payments and treasury records, the PEFA timing standards for reconciliation and what audit offices found.
Revenue leakage: what audit offices have found
Findings by audit offices in Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Zambia on revenue collected outside systems, not transferred or not remitted.
Uganda: URA payment registration numbers and the e-Tax portal
How Uganda's PRN system works for taxes and non-tax revenue on the URA portal, how banks and mobile money take payment, the law and audit findings.