Sierra Leone needs to improve on its revenue collection
A Sierra Leonean born economist who is presently based in Tunisia, Dr. Victor AB Davies (in photo)Â who has worked for National Bureau of Economic Research USA has told the Sierra Express Media that for the country improve better, government needs to widely improve on its revenue collection.
He made this disclosure at the Taia Resort, Beach Road, Lumley, on Wednesday 16th June 2010.
Dr Davies disclosed that his purpose of coming to the country was to conduct a research which will last for three weeks. The research will involve mostly field work and then spend some days doing his final analysis in the country. He said he will then proceed to Liberia.
He maintained that the objective of his research was to look at how the government of Sierra Leone and the government of Liberia generate their national revenue to run their governments.
He said after being in the country for almost 10 days his findings revealed that revenue collection in Liberia is much higher than that of Sierra Leone. In given statistics, he said Sierra Leone has 11% of revenue collection while Liberia has 27%.
Dr Davies continue to state that he has met with various stakeholders since he returned to the country and some of the issues he disclosed to them was that the country has many leakages in the revenue collection, the reason why the government is losing a lot.
He cited some strategic areas where the government should concentrate on in generating revenue that will be of more benefit to the people of this country. He gave as examples marine and fishing industry, Ministry of Mineral Resources, Tourism Ministry and the National Revenue Authority.
Dr. Davies added that more government reforms should be implemented especially in the Marine and Mining Industries to prevent illegal mining, smuggling of natural resources, and prevent the illegal poaching in our seas. He said if proper measures are put in place in this areas government will get more revenue.
While commenting on the work of the NRA, the researcher said NRA is doing well in the collection of revenue for the government but more needed to be done, especially in improving some of their revenue collection.
He noted that the Income Tax department at NRA still has a manual process of collecting revenue. He commanded the new automated method called the ACYCUDA ++ which was initiated by NRA, but from his findings the system is facing some challenges.
He however commended the government for their developmental policies and noted that more needed to be done for Sierra Leone to compete with other African countries for the generation of revenue collection.     Â
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