Napoleon Adok Gai, the Director General of the National Communication Authority - Credit: Ministry of ICT and Postal Services

The telecom sector collectively contributes close to 5 billion South Sudan Pounds to the government coffers monthly, according to the Director General of the National Communication Authority. 

This is way high compared to over 6 million South Sudanese Pounds in the previous years.

According to Napoleon Adok, the previous collections were done by multiple people whom he said were taxing goods they didn’t know.

But the authority, Adok said, changed the scenario and they took over from the tax collectors, bringing about the 5-billion revenue collection monthly.

Adok added that the monthly revenue collection is paying half of government employee salaries.

He made the remarks during a coordination and streamlining meeting with all the state ministries of information and communication, and mobile operators in Juba on Tuesday.

“The tax authority was not organized enough, many multiple people were going to operators to collect money,” Adok said.

“I don’t believe this was the amount [680,000,000 SSP] was going into the government account but because there are a lot of loopholes on both sides, the tax collector and the taxpayer, everybody negotiating their way, and by the time the check reached the government, it reached like that,” he said.

“We changed that scenario when we took over and we told the tax collectors that you cannot collect tax on goods that you don’t know, commodity, which you don’t measure.

“Maybe car oil, kilogram of sugar you can see and measure but how can you measure the telecom service? That’s when we start introducing the revenue authority and the tax starts jumping from SSP 600 million.

“I can tell you for a fact, that monthly, the telecom sector collectively is contributing close to 5 billion SSP every month. So, we are paying half of your salary to the government. So, there’s a lot of money going to the government.”