by MTHULISI SIBANDA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – SOUTH Sudan has generated SSP100 billion (US$767,7 million) in taxes through a newly-launched electronic tax collection service (e-service) over the past fortnight.
However the government has lamented resistance by some government agencies in transitioning to the new Electronic Board Service, rolled out by the National Revenue Authority (NRA).
“This figure could have been more than SSP 100 billion had it not (been) because other government agencies were resisting e-service efforts,” said Deputy Chairperson of the NRA board of directors, Eng. Tejwok Simon Ajak.
Ajak singled out the civil aviation authority among prominent national institutions resisting e-service.
He was speaking this past weekend in the capital, Juba, while welcoming the NRA’s new board of directors.
Mayickit Yai Ackol, economist from the Bank of South Sudan, said of the e-service, “This is a good initiative.”
“One- hundred billion SSP in two weeks and the month contains four weeks…thus it could double or almost double the aforesaid amount by small margins, or triple, depending on the mode of the market conditions.”
South Sudan, a nation of over 12 million people, is the world’s newest country after attaining independence in 2011.
A civil war that erupted two years later and intermittent conflicts have scuttled its progress.
SSP is short for the South Sudanese Pound.
– CAJ News