JUBA, OCTOBER 10, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan’s transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) on Monday passed the National Revenue Authority Act 2016 (Amendment) Bill 2023 from the second to the third reading stage.
The bill presented by Changkuoth Bichioch Reth, Chairperson of the Standing Specialized Committee on Finance and Economic Planning on Monday, was initially tabled before the parliament in its first reading by Justice Minister, Ruben Madol Arol in June.
John Agany Deng, chair of the parliamentary information committee said the aim of the review is to guarantee the autonomy of the institution and ensure compliance and conformity with provisions of the 2018 peace deal.
“Now it has been tabled for the second reading stage and we have passed it into the third reading stage and definitely in the next sitting, it will be deliberated at stage three, and it will be passed finally to the fourth and final stage,” said Agany after parliamentary sitting on Monday.
Agany said the bill will regulate the collection of non-oil revenue.
“This bill is very important for our non-oil revenue collection and for the people of South Sudan who entirely depend on oil and we are thinking that the oil is the only source of revenue and the lives depend on it,” he said.
“But basically, it is not that true, we have non-oil revenue which is looming and more than oil and so, the good use of it will be for the benefit of the people of South Sudan. It will improve our finances and definitely, the country will prosperous through non-oil revenue collection.”
For his part, Africano Mande, Commissioner General of National Revenue Authority said the bill will tackled legal challenges faced by the financial institution.
“Truly, there are numbers of law challenges that we have within the National Revenue Authority because the specificity of this legal principle have not been stipulated clearly in the National Revenue Act. So, some of the action we took was to send members of our board including senior management of National Revenue Authority to go on benchmarking in the region,” said Mande.