The newly formed Economic Crisis Management Committee (ECMC) has recommended the suspension of the Director-General of Customs Service.

President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Tuesday issued an order forming a committee tasked with managing the current economic crisis and streamlining the collection of non-oil revenues. He appointed the vice-president for the economic cluster, James Wani Igga to head the committee.

The presidential order came amid a deficit in the country’s revenues created by the coronavirus pandemic effect on the economy.

Last week, the central bank announced that it had run out of foreign exchange reserves and can no longer stop the pound’s depreciation.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting in Juba on Thursday, Puot Kang Chuol, minister of petroleum and member of the subcommittee group (A), said: “The subcommittee recommends to H.E the President to suspend the director-general of customs.”

Major General Ayii Akol Madut is the Director-General of Customs Service. He was appointed to the position by President Salva Kiir in November 2018.

The petroleum minister further said the subcommittee led by Minister of Livestock and Fisheries Onyoti Adigo also recommends the closure of all illegal accounts belonging to the Customs Service. “All the counts opened illegally in any other banks by customs should be closed,” he stressed.

Puot announced that the subcommittee wants only employees of the National Revenue Authority (NRA) to be deployed to the various government institutions to collect non-oil revenue.

“An authorized financial form is to be collected and returned to the ministry of finance and replaced with an NRA form,” he said.

“The forms that are produced by NRA have security features that will help protect the forms. Therefore, the committee has resolved that these forms be collected, and the National Revenue Authority has to distribute new forms with new security features,” he added.  

According to Puot, the subcommittee resolved that monthly operational costs be availed to all the revenue-generating institutions in the country.

“We have found out that a lot of exemptions have been issued and the money we have been losing is more than what we collect. So we have resolved that we are going to do a thorough investigation,” he said.