Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The newly appointed Commissioner-General of the South Sudan Revenue Authority (SSRA), William Anyuon Kuol, has challenged revenue staff to exceed current targets and aim for monthly collections of SSP 200 billion.
Speaking during his reception ceremony at the SSRA headquarters in Juba on Friday, Anyuon said meeting — and surpassing — projected figures would allow the government to stabilize salary payments and fund key development programmes.
He explained that although the authority currently raises more than the SSP 130 billion required for monthly salaries, budget constraints and other challenges have prevented the government from allocating additional funds for development.
“We have the issue of salaries, and Akuei put it before here that you people raised beyond the salaries that are supposed to be given monthly — that was SSP 130 billion per month — but our salaries are roughly SSP 104 billion,” Anyuon said.
“Now if it is SSP 104 billion, then the rest of the money should have been used for some of the projects like construction of schools, hospitals, road infrastructures, among others. But there are some barriers which need collective responsibility, and I will use a different approach.”
Anyuon said the SSRA would work closely with the Ministry of Finance to ensure transparency in the handling of public funds.“If we manage to collect more than SSP 130 billion, we will not sit here in SSRA to announce it,” he noted. “
“We will call the spending agent, such as the Ministry of Finance, to join us, and they will announce and confirm that they’ve received this amount and this amount is meant for this purpose — so that the people of South Sudan will know exactly where the problem is.”
The Commissioner-General further urged the staff not to become complacent even when targets are met.
“We don’t need to relax even if we are collecting beyond what has been projected to us,” he said.
“No — we need, maybe with time, some month to come, to proudly announce that we collected SSP 200 billion, not SSP 130 billion. If we are focusing, we will do it. And that will be another achievement that will not be counted for the Commissioner-General, but for the South Sudan Revenue Authority.”
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