The South Sudan Revenue Authority (SSRA) said Friday that addressing the country’s worsening cash shortages is not part of its mandate, distancing itself from efforts to resolve a liquidity crisis that has disrupted trade and banking operations.
Speaking at a reception at the authority’s headquarters in Juba, Stephen Dhieu Dau, chairperson of the SSRA board of directors, said the agency’s role is limited to collecting taxes and remitting them to the national treasury.
“The cash crisis or resolving the cash shortage is not within the mandate of the SSRA,” Dau said. “The cash crisis and its resolution will come from monetary policy and fiscal policy, not from the South Sudan Revenue Authority.”
South Sudan has faced persistent economic challenges, including high inflation, currency depreciation and limited access to cash. Dau said policy responses to the crisis must be properly aligned with the mandates of relevant government institutions.
“We should not divert the duties of the Constitution and the government institutions that have been given particular mandates,” he said, warning that misdirected measures could deepen the problem.
His remarks follow a directive by the outgoing Commissioner General, William Anyuon Kuol, requiring taxpayers to pay taxes exclusively in physical cash, a move he said could help ease the liquidity crunch.
The order led to delays at the Nimule border crossing, where traders were unable to clear goods because of difficulties making cash payments.
Dau cautioned that forcing taxpayers to pay in cash while their funds remain in banks could reduce compliance and undermine reforms aimed at digitizing revenue collection.
“First, it will lead to a decline in tax collection. Second, it will worsen the cash shortage. And also, the reform the government has undertaken for years — to digitalize revenue collection — will be abandoned,” he said.
Aggrey Tisa Sabuni, technical adviser for revenue matters at the SSRA, said strengthening domestic revenue collection remains critical to financing the national budget.
He said the authority contributed 1.1 trillion South Sudanese pounds (SSP) during the 2024–2025 fiscal year, matching oil revenues of 1.1 trillion SSP, for a total of 2 trillion SSP in realized income. Parliament approved a 4 trillion SSP budget for the period, but only half of that was projected to come from taxation and oil revenues, he said.
Sabuni said the SSRA currently contributes up to 50% of realized national revenue and aims to increase collections to 1.5 trillion SSP in the 2025–2026 fiscal year. If reforms continue and inefficiencies are addressed, he said, revenue could eventually rise to 10 trillion SSP, with or without oil income.
“Revenue collection is like squeezing honey out of a honeycomb,” Sabuni said. “You can decide to squeeze a little … or you can squeeze as much as possible.”
He cited Norway and the United Kingdom as examples of countries that maximize tax collection through efficient systems covering income, business and sales taxes.
Civil society activist Edmund Yakani said the liquidity crisis falls primarily under the Ministry of Finance and the central bank, not the revenue authority. He said public distrust in the banking system has led some people to keep cash at home, worsening shortages.
“The reality is, even if we were to have more money, we can’t get the cash because people don’t have trust and confidence in the banking system,” Yakani said.
He proposed introducing new currency notes to encourage people holding cash outside the banking system to return it to circulation, while stressing the need for clear policies to manage the transition.