The parliamentary oversight committee on finance and development has commended the National Revenue Authority’s Regional Manager in the East, Michael Alimamy Kanu and his team for collecting Le 3.6 Billion last year and Le 2.2 Billion for the first half of 2013.
The Committee Chairman, Hassan sheriff, MP, said that regional tax office had done well in helping government to raise revenue, stressing that “all documents presented to the committee are in good order”.
Kanu told the committee that the office mainly dealt with domestic tax collection and had been able to collected Le 3, 656, 253,000 for last year. He said between January and June this year they had collected Le 2, 206, 503, 490.
He made the disclosure after the committee chairman had told staff of the revenue office that NRA was the main revenue collection office of government and that the tax payers needed to be rest assured that their monies were going the right way.
He said that as stipulated by the NRA headquarters taxes were paid through banks where they were available while in areas where there are no banks tax payers went scot free.
Kanu went on that they were faced with many challenges ranging from inadequate office space and the lack of NRA-approved banks in remote areas.
Other committee members observed that for a revenue collection office doing so well the office environment was appalling and lacked enough equipment, furniture, and was understaffed. They also observed that there was no non-tax revenue officer to receive such tax payments like court fines and building licenses in Bo and Kenema.
