The National Revenue Authority (NRA) has surpassed its revenue collection target after garnering SSP 5 billion in four months from non-oil revenue, something the authority would achieve in six months under normal circumstances.

African Mande’ Gedima, the South Sudan’s Deputy Commissioner of National Revenue Authority (NRA) revealed this after briefing President Salva Kiir on new developments at the institution.

Mande said from January to April 2021, the country amassed SSP5 billion each month, which is twice more than what it collected within the same period six months prior.

“It is a matter of public record that monthly, we collected up to five billion South Sudanese Pounds from non-oil revenue, which is more than US$10million from collected from oil revenue, an achievement compared to the past six months,” he revealed.

Mr. Mande said the authority implemented an initiative that left no stone unturned in the non-oil revenue collection process, including incorporation of technology to achieve the objective.

“As NRA, we took our part and we started operationalization of these resolutions, one of which is digitalization. Today, we have fully-fledged digital system that we have established.

“We managed to restructure NRA, we managed to be able to reform some of the institutions, some of the procedures and some of the operational framework as a result we were able to record [this] tremendous achievement,” Mr. Mande disclosed.

South Sudan heavily relies on revenue from oil exportation. This means when crisis hits the global oil market the country’s economy is headed for a downfall. The NRA seeks to change that, according to Mande.    

Mande said this year’s revenue collection doubled the previous year’s, registering a remarkable improvement on the non-oil revenue.

Last year in October, the Economic Cluster Sub-Committee on Non-Oil Revenue Collection announced an amount of nearly 3billion South Sudanese Pounds in just a month.

Onyoti Adigo Nyikwec, the head of sub-committee on non-oil revenue collection who is also the Minister of Livestock and Fishery, described the milestone as sufficient improvement and good progress in the non-oil sector saying the revenue authority was previously recording less than a billion in its book in the whole month.

“I could say there is a lot of progress because the revenue authority was collecting less than 1billion South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) but in July after we have gone around, they almost got to 3billion SSP. So, it is really progress,” Adigo said.

The Minister added that the improvement came after the economic cluster sub-committee headed by himself visited Nimule-Uganda border entry and made some changes within the custom service department.

“After we went to Nimule in June [2020], what we got were two things, one of them was that some people are working on their own and the money they’re collecting was not going to the government’s account. After investigations, we stopped those people involved in such practice.

“Secondly, the people who are working in the custom service department were not doing the right thing. They had very corrupt people within the system and after the committee’s serious investigations, they were dismissed,” Adigo revealed.

Adigo believes the changes made in two positions reflected on the great improvement in the non-oil revenue collection, especially from Nimule border point.

He said the committee is now targeting more than SSP 6 billion monthly in future, the move which he said would cater for the salaries of the civil servant in the country. 

 Adigo further revealed that the economic cluster sub-committee are working hard to make sure that many collecting centers in the country is closed to pave ways for the right centers that will bring money to the government’s account.

According to Adigo, the non-oil revenue collection would make great change in the country if it is handled well and those who misappropriate it are held accountable.

“The only thing that we would like to ask the leadership of the country is to make accountability to those who are found doing dishonest practices in the country. But we are hopeful that, the sub-committee will grant sufficient non-oil revenue to fix staff salaries in the country,” Adigo added.