Tanzania train South Sudan’s finance ministry staff

By Bonifacio Taban Kuich

November 1, 2011 (BENTIU) – Tanzania has provided training to staff at Unity state’s finance ministry as part of a a memorandum of understanding signed in August.

The Capacity Building Trust Funds (CBTF) from the Tanzania government trained 25 taxation officers on how they can collect taxes more efficiently. As part of the agreement, last month, five South Sudanese taxation staff went to Tanzania for further training and capacity building.

The Tanzania taxation chambers have also reached similar agreements with
Central Equatoria and North Barh-el-Gazal states to assist them in terms of establishing state level institutions.

Gatwich Kuol inspector of administration finance taxation chamber of Unity state, told Sudan Tribune in Bentui on Tuesday, that the trip to Tanzania had provided staff with specialist skills to train others in the ministry and at lower administrative levels.

One the staff who received the training, James Wijial Teak. “What we have learned will help us to improve our work in the process of taxing policy,” he said. Teak and the other participants will now go the counties of Unity state and implement the new methods.

Unity state’s ministry of finance says it hired experts from Tanzania to improve the capacity of its staff as South Sudan, which is still recovering from decades of civil war and underinvestment, does not have a well trained civil service.

Rashid Mohamed from the Tanzania Revenue Authority, told Sudan Tribune that they had provided Unity state officials training on “physical policy and taxation principals and the roles taxes law.”

He said that with his colleagues they had installed a new computerised system, which would make data easier to access.

Corruption is a major problem in South Sudan an it is hoped that by providing officials with training and installing a thorough system the prevalence of graft in tax collecting will be reduced.

No official in South Sudan has ever been prosecuted for corruption despite the government acknowledging the importance issue and setting up an anti-corruption commission.

(ST)