Eastern Equatoria State Governor Louis Lobong Lojore has directed the Torit municipal council officials to do everything necessary to scale up revenue collection.
Lobong was speaking during the swearing-in ceremony of the deputy mayor of Torit municipal council and the deputy commissioner of revenue authority in Eastern Equatoria State on Friday last week.
The two deputies were appointed on the 10th of May when Mr Patrick Robert was appointed as deputy mayor of Torit municipal council and James Okot Dario deputy Commissioner of State Revenue Authority.
Speaking during the swearing-in ceremony at the State Secretariat Hall, Lobong called on the two newly-appointed deputies to use the available resources for the development of the state.
He said “We must depend on our resources, why is the Municipal Council of Torit not collecting money, when we are seeing it’s a big town, we are seeing activities going on?” he questioned.
“By then the Minister of Finance when he was presenting said they are not getting state percentage from the mayor and we are expecting them to lead because they are the municipality,” he said.
Eastern Equatoria State Deputy Governor Mary Alphonse Lodira urged the two leaders to consider citizens first in exercising their duties.
“The statement is in place this is what brought all of us here not for personal things but to truly serve our people,” Mary stated.
Meanwhile, the new deputy mayor Mr Patrick Robert expresses his willingness to work with his colleague in delivering basic services to people at the grassroots.
“On behalf of my colleague am ready to deliver my services to the municipality because the municipality is the centre of services. Mostly this work has nothing to do with politics but we shall be working according to the state policies implementing Government Policies, our interest is to serve the people so this is why Honorable Governor we try to create an environment that will allow our people to get access to services, we shall not be saying much but because we are not people of words but we shall see things put in action hopefully,” Deputy Mayor Robert expressed.
