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Eastern Equatoria State Governor Louis Lobon Lojole has threatened to close the traffic police station in Torit after officials claimed that the revenue they collect is directly remitted to the national government in Juba.
The governor gave the state traffic police a one-week ultimatum to produce documents proving they were remitting money to Juba or else he would expel them from the state and only deal with state policemen who abide by the state’s policies.
Governor Lobon also issued a one-month ultimatum to the Insurance Regulatory Authority to start collecting and remitting the money to the state government or face closure.
This was stated on Friday at the closing ceremony of a three-day tax harmonization workshop organized by the Eastern Equatoria State Revenue Authority with the support of the United Nations Development Programme in Torit.
The workshop brought together nearly 100 stakeholders from eight counties in the state under the theme “Enhancing revenue mobilization capacity for effective implementation of public financial management reforms in the state”.
“I never knew that there are traffic police here who work for the state (government) and they collect money. I have no idea about this and I have not received any such letter, that is why I called the police chief here. I am now giving those traffic police who think they are responsible for Juba seven days to bring an official letter that they belong to the state government and they collect money and send it to Juba,” he charged. “After that, I will close the office here because you belong to the state government, pack up and leave, you will never collect money here, we will train our police here. The office they work in belongs to the state and we bought the only car they use for the traffic police, so if you belong to the state government, then what are you doing here? You are thieves! I know the money is not going anywhere and it is not going to the state treasury as they claim.”
“I am very serious about this issue because they cannot collect resources from this state and take them somewhere without my knowledge and without any documents,” Lobon added.
For his part, the state police commissioner, Major General James Monday Enoka, said there was a need to respect the rule of law and clarify whether the country’s system of administration was centralized or decentralized.
“The problem is with the checkpoints because the national government has no mandate to charge anything other than the cost of service and operation. Collection of money at the checkpoints is another matter, they have no authority to collect money,” he explained. “I have been here for two and a half years and I have not given the police the mandate to collect money but of course, we have given strong orders to the security council and the governors. Eastern Equatoria is at least the best state because there are very few checkpoints but in other states, there are more than 20 checkpoints.”
Gen. Mondi, however, admitted that when he visited Kapoeta with the Minister of Local Government to investigate how policemen at the checkpoints handled the money collected, they found that they distributed the money among themselves.
He added: “We have a strict code of conduct for all organised forces but the situation there is beyond our control and if you want to disband them you have to disband the whole force and frankly all the forces.”
Meanwhile, Vice Governor Mary Alfonso Lodilla clarified that the country has a federal system of government and urged transparency on revenue issues.
“The country has a federal system and each state has to do its part. This is a good move because corruption must be eradicated, especially bribery on the roads,” she said. “We should be honest and transparent in conducting government affairs.”
Geoffrey Von Otto, executive director of the state Department of Revenue, said the workshop decided to stop providing operating costs to counties that don’t send money to state headquarters.
“Only state law firms are allowed to process land or property fee agreements with professional fees of 5% instead of 10%. Failure to comply will lead to closure. All land brokers must be registered and licensed to streamline and track the sale of land and other properties in the state,” he said. “On the issue of vehicle license plates and number plates and log books, we found that the failure to enforce the state traffic police to collect good taxes is because they ignore and undermine the state tax policy guidelines. The national traffic police impose their tricks on the state traffic police so all their collections are remitted to their head office in Juba.”
He added: “It is suggested that there is a need to introduce a state-level system for issuing driver licenses, that the state governments should print their own documents to reduce the interference of state agencies, and that there is a need for high-level decision-making, to resolve command issues and involve the state police traffic and state civil protection services.”
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