Central Equatoria State Governor Clement Wani Konga. [Gurtong | File]
By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 26 October 2012 [Gurtong] - Konga spoke during the inauguration of the CES Secretariat said that the national government after agreement with the states on how the distribution of the revenues should be facilitated failed to live up to the mandate.
“At the time when we were collecting money after we trained our people, in a month we would get 11/12 million South Sudan Pounds. But now money that is being sent to us is six million,” Konga said.
“So am pulling out from the centralized revenue collections. I have given directives already to the CES Minster of Finance to write to the National Minister of Finance that I’m going to start deploying my workers to Nesitu and Kaya,” said the Governor.
“From the 1st of November we will start collecting our monies…you-(State authorities) organize yourselves so that by the 1st of November we will collect our own revenues,” he added.
After the shut down of the South Sudan oil production which used to contribute over 90% of the country’s annual budget, the national government resorted to exploring alternative revenue collection sources.
Among which was the centralization of the revenue collections which involved taking over the responsibility from the States to the national government. All the ten states entered into a mutual agreement with the national government that let to the centralization policy.