By Chuol Chanyong

A renowned South Sudanese economist, Dr. Abraham Malliet, says the non-oil revenues can sufficiently cover the government’s needs and pay the salaries of civil servants, if properly collected and administered.

“We have a lot of non-oil resources. South Sudan has more money than any other country in the region, but we do not have a system that can collect this revenue well,” Dr. Maliet said.  

He pointed out that South Sudan needs an electronic system that can calculate accurately.

“What we specifically need is a system that retailers can use to figure out how much tax should be paid to government,” he said. “When you come to buy water from the store and give, for example, one thousand pounds (1000) for the value of the bill, through this process a percentage should be determined for the government, in return knowing the basic percentage for purchasing the water.”

Meanwhile, civil society activist, Edmund Yakani, says the directive by the president to transfer all the non-oil revenue to a central account is yet to be implemented.

“His Excellency, the President of the Republic, we noted your decision to direct the Minister of Finance to create a central account to deposit revenues from the Nimuli border Post. As you say that the country has sources of revenue other than oil revenues, but we want to create one central account to transfer these revenues. As we speak now, we have not yet witnessed the transfer of any non-oil revenues from the Nimuli border entrance to one central account,” Yakani said.  

Yakani appealed to president Kiir to follow upon the directive to ensure implementation.

“We appeal to Your Excellency to follow up on this decision closely, and if possible, let the Minister of Finance explain to the Council of Ministers where the central account is, and how the account operate because we are concerned and we are losing our money from the non-oil  revenues to individuals’ pockets,” he said. 

“This is one of the main reasons that contribute to creating an obstacle for the government to regularly pay the salaries of civil service employees.” 

Yakani called on the President to seriously push for the implementation of his decision to establish a unified central account to transfer non-oil revenues.

President Kiir had during the swearing in of the current finance minister, Dr. Marial Dongrin, directed for the creation of one central government bank account to deposit all non-oil revenues.