South Sudan witnessed an increase in revenue collection in the past few months, with nearly 4 billion Pounds collected in April alone, the head of the country’s revenue authority disclosed.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to the governor of South Sudan’s Torit State on Tuesday, the Commissioner General of South Sudan Revenue Authority, Dr. Olympio Attipoe said they collect nearly 4 billion Pounds every month.
He further said salary problems will be resolved next year if the financial reform is consistent and supported.
“At the national level, we are making very tremendous efforts and the revenue figures, since January, we have been improving consistently and very significantly. If everybody supports the system, then by the end of this year, the issue of salary delays and salaries not being paid will be over,” said Attipoe.
“What we will be talking about is how your salary can be enhanced because if now we are collecting close to about 4 billion SSP a month, then it is something we should be proud of since it has never happened in this country before,” he added.
According to the official, there is need for reforms and a functional system to allow collection of enough revenue for services provision.
“If we manage successfully to support the system in the current reform and have a functioning national revenue authority and the pilot program we are running in the states is also functioning, then the national government will have more resources to give as allocation and whatever you are also generating will be able to provide services to our people,” said Attipoe.
He said citizens are not interested in mere words, but need services.
“What our people need is not all about delivering big speeches, it is about services. People have suffered a lot and what do we need to do for them as leaders is to make sure that we honor the resources and deliver services to the people,” stressed the official.
They country’s revenue authority boss said South Sudan can solve its own problems without support from the international community.
“We know our problem, it is not the international community who will come and tell us our problem. We even know the solutions ourselves. What we need from them is for them to come and support us to get to where we want to go. We know exactly where we want to go, so we have the responsibility to make sure that we take the lead and whatever support comes from international community is just an addition to make sure that we get to where we are going,” he said.
Meanwhile, the deputy head of mission at the Japanese embassy in South Sudan, Mitsuhiro Toyama said developing the young nation through ownership will help its citizens obtain services needed.
“So it is important to develop this country as ownership is very important. This is actually why we are supporting this state revenue project because the state has all the steps to make their plans for their tax collection and after that government will make their basic service delivery,” said Toyama.
He said the government of Japan would continue supporting Torit State’s economy as well as economies of the other states.
Toyama was in Torit for the launch of the state revenue authority.