A prominent South Sudanese activist on Sunday called on top government officials in Jonglei State to be transparent in the use of taxpayers’ money.
The call came after Governor Mahjoub Biel Turuk and his deputy, Atong Kuol Manyang, presented conflicting statements on how the USD 190,000 collected from Personal Income Tax (PIT) was spent.
Turuk disclosed that USD 31,000 has been allocated to the governor’s office of which 10,000 is meant for his office operations, 6,000 for the family house rent in Juba, 9,000 for car hire, and 6,000 dollars for security services.
In addition, he said that his deputy is allocated 22,000 dollars for house rent and car hire and 3,600 is paid to six advisors of the governor.
In contrast, Deputy Governor Atong Kuol Manyang trashed the governor’s breakdown of how resources are used.
Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), urged state officials to maintain transparency in tax collection and allocations.
“As a civil society leader who stands for transparency, I would like us to use the example of the debate going on between the governor of Jonglei State and his deputy to ensure that transparency on the matters of the collection of the PIT and the utilization of the revenue under the PIT is very important,” he told Radio Tamazuj on Sunday.
Yakani said most governors have run away with the PIT as their source of income. He suggested the regular auditing of state government would prevent mismanagement of public funds, especially the Personal Income Tax (PIT) collected at the state level.
“Thanks that the culture of audit has now been raised at the state level on the PIT item,” he said. “I would like to ask the leadership of the council of states to respond to this particular ongoing debate seriously before it escalates to political frictions, political tensions that may paralyze the function of the state government due to the tension between the governor and deputy governor over the use of the PIT.”
He said the audit should focus on using national government grants, personal income tax (PIT) collections, domestic taxes, and state-owned assets, such as vehicles.