South Sudan advocacy group urges new NRA chief to centralize revenue in single bank account

JUBA – The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO)  is calling on the South Sudan National Revenue Authority to centralize all forms of revenue collected into a single account openly and transparently.

The Treasury Single Account, where all government revenues are collected, was opened and became operational in December 2018 but it didn’t work when then Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority Dr Olympio Attipoe was fired in August by the Finance Minister.

The revenue collected continues to be diverted into private accounts that were opened and managed by some senior government officials according to Economic Crisis Management Committee

The CEPO Executive Director, Edmund Yakani, described the reopening of treasury single account as the best and practical way to reform the financial system in the country.

Edmund appeals to the Revenue Authority to direct other government institutions tasked with revenue collections to use the banking system for payment of all forms of revenue across the country to minimize corruption

Yakan said firing the Finance Minister is the best way of dealing away with corrupt public officials and reform the corrupt system.

He calls on the government to charge all directors in the Ministry of Finance to open ways for the financial reforms.

CEPO appeals to the recently established Economic Crisis Management Committee to conduct a public workshop on how to design best practice for rescuing the current economic situation.

He added that the government should use the revenues collected to buy more goods to reduce the prices in the market.

He further said that the government should ensure that the Central Bank has enough reserves so as stop Pounds from depreciating against the US Dollar.