By Taban Henry
President Salva Kiir Mayardit has cautioned transparency within the National Revenue Authority (NRA) in executing its mandate of collecting the non-oil revenue in the country.
The President said openness is the biggest challenge facing smooth running of Revenue Authority as it struggles towards performing its task to accumulate and save the non-oil proceeds.
Kiir made his statement on Wednesday during his meeting with the Commissioner General of the NRA.
The President listened to a presentation from the Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority (NRA) Dr. Patrick Mugoya regarding NRA 5 years strategic plan, and the NRA key human resources policies that have been approved by its board of Directors, awaiting government approval.
The Wednesday’s meeting at State House J1 was attended by the Executive Director in the Office of the President, James Deng Wol and the Deputy Executive Director in the office of the President Thiik Kiir Mayardit.
In his remarks after listening to the presentation President Salva Kiir said that, he acknowledged the work done by NRA to improve the collections of the non-oil revenues and encouraged them to always strive to increase the revenue collections and not to go down.
He however pointed out that there is transparency deficit in the collection of the non-oil revenues.
“The biggest challenge facing the NRA is lack of transparency in revenues collections and to end, I direct the NRA leadership to address the loopholes and collect the revenues with transparency and integrity,” Kiir said.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner General for the National Revenue Authority said once the 5-year strategic plan (2022-2027) is approved by the government and implemented accordingly, it will transform the NRA to the level of other National Revenue Authorities in the region adding, it will enhance the collection of non-oil revenues in the country.
“The presentation projected the performance of non-oil revenues for the next five years (i.e. 2022-2027) and the target the government has set to achieve during the period, the target of NRA is to increase the collection of non-oil revenues by 30% above the target set by the government,” Dr. Patrick said.
He assured the President of the NRA’s commitment in mobilizing the collection of non-oil revenues for the national development through their core values of; transparency, accountability, professionalism, integrity and teamwork.
“I appealed to the President that the process of approving the NRA’s 5 years strategic plan by the government be fast tracked and also requested for the approval of the NRA Human Resource Policy that would enable the organization to recruit, retain and event train its own,” he further stated.