By Simon Deng
The National Revenue Authority (NRA) has set an ambitious target of increasing monthly non-oil revenue collection from 1.5 billion to 6 billion South Sudanese Pounds starting from 2022 till 2027.
This was revealed on Monday in Juba by Patrick Mugoya, the Commissioner General for the NRA during the technical meeting between South Sudanese and Sudanese tax officials at Palm Africa Hotel.
Mogoya disclosed that once they achieve the new target, they will be able to increase total annual collection from 27 billion SSP to about 134 billion SSP by 2027.
“This requires South Sudan Custom Service to increase their efforts not only two or three times but four times, we are talking of increasing custom revenue to the level of 6 billion SSP per month from less than 1.5 billion SSP per month,” he said.
The technical meeting was attended by Bashir Al-Tahir, the Director General for Sudan Customs, and Thomas Jal, Assistant Inspector General for the South Sudan police and Akol Ayii Madut, the Commissioner General for South Sudan’s Custom Service.
Gamal Goraish, the Sudanese Ambassador to South Sudan, said close cooperation between the two neighboring countries is very important for encouraging trade facilitation.
“The cooperation and mutual assistance in customs will unify procedures for custom between the two countries, we share a common border and trade between the two countries depends on economic cooperation,” Goraish said.
He also called for cooperation to deter smuggling of goods across the common border by opening 10 border crossing points.
“We need security at the border, without stability and security there is no trade,” Goraish said.
Last year the two countries reached agreement on reopening these border crossing points that were shut down after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
