By Taban Henry
An official working with the clearance agents in Nimule town said the new multiplied custom rates from 45-90 percent rates has scared traders hence provoking the increase of prices in the market.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper on Thursday James Atem, the Public Relations Secretary and Freight Forwarders Association in Nimule said the recently stopped custom rates scared the market hence provoking the traders to hike prices of goods in the market.
“The recently stopped custom new rates which multiplies 45 to 90 percent has really scared the market and all the traders said okay if the government is not minding of us we can also raise our prices” Atem said.
He however appreciated the National Revenue Authority (NRA) and the custom division for putting on hold the new circular pending further scrutiny.
Atem wished that the government could take care and shy off the funding issues adding that the other thing making the citizens suffer is lack of supervision of other government policies.
“The government may say something today and they will not implement,” he underlined.
“Our market is a free market, there are people who are in charge of the market and they don’t monitor the market how things are running out. The prices flow at wish of the traders which contributes to the price increase in the market,” Atem stressed.
The clearance agent further said they don’t over charge but they charge what the government has calculated as a custom rate citing that the skyrocketing prices of goods in the market is caused by the Central Bank daily circular for auctioning the dollar.
“You can see today the dollar is auctioned at 58 and in the black market will be around 63-64SSP”.
“My message to the people is that every government has policies but whenever the policies come up first analyze and mind of your citizens mostly the policies of the customs and external trade in other countries, these policies are first debated in the parliament which is not the case in South Sudan where the concerned directorate makes policies and immediately enforce for public consumption which causes more harm and suffering to the country,” he further explained.
Atem urged the government to make sure that all the policies must first be debated upon and approved by the public for public consumption.