Africa-Press – Eswatini. Eswatini will again, for the 2024/2025 financial year, receive the highest SACU receipts.
When announcing that Eswatini would get E13.06 billion Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts, the Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said emaSwati would start ‘feeling it in their pockets’. “Compared to the 2023/2024 level, SACU revenue for 2024/25 will grow by 11.15 per cent and will stand at E13.06 billion,” he said. In the 2023/2024 financial year, the country’s SACU receipts were E11.75 billion and were 102 per cent higher than the E5.8 billion of 2022/2023. SACU consists of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Eswatini. All customs, excise and additional duties (trade taxes) collected in the SACU Common Customs Area are paid into the common revenue pool and shared among member states.
Revenue
Member States’ share of the pool is disbursed or determined in accordance with the SACU agreement’s revenue sharing formula. The current Revenue Sharing Formula has three components; namely, the Customs Component, Excise Component and the Development Component. The Customs share is allocated on the basis of each country’s share of intra-SACU imports. The minister explained that of the E13.06 billion, E1.8 billion was surplus revenue collections emanating from the 2022/2023 financial year, while the E11.26 billion was based on the projected common revenue pool projection for 2024/2025, which has grown by 6.6 per cent from the 2023/2024 level.
He explained that some of the factors that led to the increase were that, Eswatini’s imports from SACU, during the year under review, increased by 25.24 per cent compared to the previous year. The minister said the increase was a good indication of the economy and economic growth. Rijkenberg added that part of the receipts would be directed to the Revenue Stabilisation Fund. This fund was established to reduce the country’s over reliance on SACU receipts.
Receipts
Government put some of the receipts in the fund, which generates interest and would be utilised, should the country face fiscal crises that may be caused by the fluctuating SACU receipts. In the year under review, the minister announced that the country would put E1.5 billion into the fund. The minister stated that it had not been decided how much would be injected into the fund, in the next cycle. “We are looking into putting something in the Revenue Stabilisation Fund, but that figure will be finalised in the budgeting process and will be announced in the budget speech. It is relief for us, as Finance, to see the SACU receipts going up again for another year,” he said.
He lauded emaSwati for declaring their goods at the border gates, which boosted the SACU receipts. “We would like to thank emaSwati who are faithfully declaring goods at the border. We also have the Sekulula system at the border, which should be helping to make things easier for someone to declare goods outside the qualified countries, making it easier for us to claim the money from South Africa maybe. We would also like to encourage people to continue declaring their goods. If it is below E5 000, you can even say cash sale and if it is above E5 000, they should have a full name that is exactly the same name of your passport, and your physical address, because it helps us to claim for that VAT,” he said.
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