The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), a civil society organization, is calling on Lakes State Legislative Assembly to summon the state revenue authority and the state finance ministry to explain the domestic taxes collection and utilization.
In a statement dated 19 March 2022, CEPO said “call upon Commissioner of Local Revenues Authority in Lakes state to make public reports on domestic revenues collected with the spirit of transparency and accountability.’
“Since the establishment of the state-local revenue authority’s administration in Lakes State, the departments’ tasks for collection remain zero cash in their offices to support and facilitate their operations as the running cost,” the statement read in part. “CEPO want to see meaningful transparency and accountability, requires information to reach citizens and to convey ‘a credible and appealing’ narrative that counters prevalent mindsets around taxation in the local markets in all eight counties of Lakes State.”
CEPO’s Lakes State coordinator Daniel Laat Kon who signed the letter further said the state government needs to declare in its public reports all the revenue that was collected since the establishment of the revenue authority two months ago.
“This will reduce malpractices and dependency on oil revenues bolster non-oil revenues sector and strengthen expenditure control in the state government institutions,” he said.
It adds, “CEPO believes that government can raise, prioritize, and manage resources for increased capacity and social services delivery which is critical to the implementation of the peace agreement. We call upon the state parliament to take up their responsibility in order to summon the administrator of revenue authority and ministry of finance to explain the use of domestic revenues mobilized in the state.”
However, responding to the calls, the commissioner of Lakes State Revenue Authority in Rumbek, Mayek Marial, said his report is not ready but he can only share it with permission from the governor.
“My report can go direct first to the governor then the governor can be the one to give that report to you. It is only two months plus March. But it is still uncompleted. I started the collection of Lakes State revenues from January to February,” he said.
Marial stated that there is no expenditure of the collected revenues, saying the money is in the bank.
He claimed that since he came to the office in January, CEPO has not visited his office to inquire about revenue collection.
“I don’t know whether they are on the way to come and see how we work. We have a system. You cannot set up a system without a voucher, a receipt for the collection of revenues. So, we have those forms. We have forms 39, 15, and we have this form 40 waiting for remittance. We have all types of form,” he added.