April 30, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
Director General of National Revenue Authority Dr. Samuel Jibao has said that the notoriety that had beset the National Revenue Authority NRA in assuming the sobriquet ‘Kalilu’ before their administration has now been jettisoned. Kalilu is a personification of a black sheep of the family in the songline of one of Sierra Leone’s songsters Steady Bongo.
As an integrity image crisis of the NRA under the past administration the indicators were evident in gross fiscal discrepancies base on fiscal audit. Staff audit also showed there was no Deputy Commissioner General and many positions had people acting which created serious operational issues and consequently invested more powers in the senior management that met infrequently
Dr. Samuel Jibao observed that their gains in ameliorating the chaotic situation that they inherited in 2018 can be attributed to the political will of President Bio and the Ministry of Finance in for instance allowing the recruitment of needed man power to fill the vacant positions that had created an unpredictable revenue collection situation.
Recounting the gains of NRA at the weekly Ministry of Information Press Conference, under his charge, much to the delight of international partners, Dr. Samuel Jibao disclosed that year by year there has been revenue growth by over a trillion leones.
He spoke about international standard of annual revenue growth threshold pegged at 2% which has been exceeded in Sierra Leone under the Bio administration. He said the 2021 target is now 6.4 trillion leones.
He disclosed the reordering of the Mines sector that holds promise for huge revenue especially with the diversification of funds accruing sources to augment the GDP.
Dr. Samuel Jibao said the gain recorded in increased revenue mobilization is based on tax compliance which means that NRA is now doing very little tax education and they are now majoring on moral education.
There is now a growing trend towards instituting an automated tax collection system and Dr. Jibao has sent out a caution to GST registered business to cooperate with the authority as the process of installing machines to monitor their tax obligations get underway. He used the occasion to send out the caveat that there are penalties for obstructing tax collection.
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and even the staff audit done to uncover huge gaps and the.
showed that the anomalies in the the