South Sudan unveil measures to improve non-oil revenues
Article
Comments (2)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
November 29, 2016 (JUBA) - The South Sudanese government has unveiled
measures aimed at closing gaps created by drops in the production of
oil resources.
JPEG - 29.5 kb
An oil field in South Sudan’s Unity State. (Photo: UN / Tim McKulka)
South Sudan’s economy is currently in dire straits as the local
currency, South Sudan Pound has fallen by over 50% and revenue
generated from oil, the mainstay of foreign earnings, is at its lowest
in the past years, leading to macroeconomic spillovers and consequent
quest for economic diversification.
Unveiling the strategies seeking to close the gap, the country’s
deputy finance minister, Mary Jervas Yak, said the government wants to
generate non-oil revenues and that revenue collected would be used to
fund larger parts of the national budget.
"While oil may be our biggest source of revenue, looking at the
current economic situation, it may be wise to explore other options,"
explained the deputy minister.
Yak, however, said situation in the war-torn nation required her
institution to raise the bar by deepening and expanding its tax
collection drive through an aggressive tax system, considering the
dwindling revenue profile as a result of the drop in oil prices.
"In the meantime, funds looted and stashed in foreign accounts should
be recovered by the government. These stolen monies run in billions of
dollars, which is enough to sustain an economy for a couple of years,"
she stressed.
According to the deputy finance minister, President Salva Kiir has
written to some western countries asking their involvement to help
trace the money and return stolen assets stashed in foreign banks,
adding that in order to accrue revenue from non-oil sectors, the
government needs to tackle electricity issues throughout the country.
"This will help attract global investments for massive
industrialisation, which will subsequently increase our internally
generated revenue," explained the official.
The minister said government would revamp and carry out major reforms
in education and health care systems so that tertiary institutions
will churn out graduates who are employers of labour and not go abroad
for better opportunities.
If the health system is revamped, the official emphasized, worthy
services will be rendered to the citizens and the productive capacity
of human resources will be optimised thus increasing life expectancy.
"Similarly, good road infrastructure should be built and existing ones
properly maintained to facilitate inter-state commerce and mobility,"
she added.
Speaking at the non-oil revenue collection management workshop in
progress in Juba, a Japanese official said it was time the government
should work hard to improve its tax collection system to generate more
non-oil revenues.
Higeru Hamano, a Japan’s embassy representative at the workshop on
non-oil revenue collection, said tax was a very authentic source of
government revenues.
“Revenue is a gift for the government and that is why Japan thinks
that South Sudanese Government needs to improve its tax system to help
South Sudan build its social infrastructure and deliver various social
services,” Hamano said on Monday.
“The Government must be accountable to its citizens and such
accountability must be exercised through effective parliamentary
control. Every minister at the state level is accountable to
parliament.”
The training was organized by the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Planning in collaboration with United Nations Development Program and
Government of Japan.
The resident representative for the UNDP, Eugene Owusu said they were
helping in building a strategic financial management system for
government institutions.
He pledged readiness to engage stakeholders from the private sector,
development partners and the civil society.
“We’d like to build partnership not only the government and state
authorities at the local level, but also seek the engagement of the
private sector, civil society organizations and development partners,”
said Owusu.
“As UNDP, we will continue to provide strategic policy advisory
support to the state Government financial management system, we will
support budgeting and development planning if we are to succeed in
building a transparent financial management system at the state levels
which I insist will lessen South Sudan’s reliance financial deficits
and South Sudan’s dependency on aid and donor support in a step by
step progressive manner," he added.
(ST).
Comments on the Sudan Tribune website must abide by the following
rules. Contravention of these rules will lead to the user losing their
Sudan Tribune account with immediate effect.
- No inciting violence
- No inappropriate or offensive language
- No racism, tribalism or sectarianism
- No inappropriate or derogatory remarks
- No deviation from the topic of the article
- No advertising, spamming or links
- No incomprehensible comments
Due to the unprecedented amount of racist and offensive language on
the site, Sudan Tribune tries to vet all comments on the site.
There is now also a limit of 400 words per comment. If you want to
express yourself in more detail than this allows, please e-mail your
comment as an article to [email protected]
Kind regards,
The Sudan Tribune editorial team.
30 November 05:24, by Naath
The Dinka tribal gang leaders are now feeling the pain of economic
collapse as Dinka population from all corners of South Sudan are
fleeing to Sudan with high speed due to hunger their tribal leader
created. The Dinka from all walk sang enjoyful songs, danced, shot
guns in the air when Nuer were massacred in Juba in December 2013,
they thought the dead Nuer salaries would boost their economic.
repondre message
30 November 05:35, by Naath
Although these wars destroyed the Nuer land to the core, I am
glad my people responded to the barbaric killing of Nuer by the Dinka
tribal leaders in Juba. Kiir is the world foolish Dinka tribal chief
among all the South Sudanese tribal chiefs. He will never ever achieve
anything in his life except killing of his voters who voted him to
power.
--
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqDTdyA4x9ACxi4CrG9%2BjMDQfVuqwk%3DgswOT86-cE-cmQ%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
