NRA suspends commissioner citing incompetence

The National Revenue Authority (NRA) has suspended its commissioner for corporation services, citing incompetence.

In a document seen by The City Review, the NRA wrote a letter to the Commissioner for Corporate Service on November 11, 2021, suspending him with immediate effect.

The letter was written by Dr Patrick Mugoya (pictured), the Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority.

Dr Mugoya said that despite holding the position for more than 15 months, the records showed that Daniel Magot Deng had failed in his duties and this warranted immediate action.

According to the employment contract dated July 7, 2020, the responsibilities of the Commissioner for Corporate Services were to ‘‘coordinate administrative support services, inter alia, human resources, revenue collection control, transfers, and logistical management.” Deng was also supposed to execute the work of human resources.

But according to Dr Mugoya, from the time he was assigned until his time of suspension, Deng had not developed or proposed any recruitment policy in line with the provisions of the NRA act, 2016.

‘Did not follow the law’

“You have been recruiting staff without adhering to any procedure, nor obtaining approval from the commissioner-general.

“Five months after the commencement of the current financial year, you have failed to submit a draft budget to the authorities despite numerous oral and written reminders by the Commissioner-General,” Dr Mugoya stated.

The document also stated that Deng did not produce the NRA annual Financial Report for 2020/21, ‘‘despite numerous reminders both in oral and written format from the commissioner-general”.

He said the laxity spread to the crucial functions of revenue collection control and transfers, especially on the reconciliation of the figures with amounts supposed to be banked.

Consequently, Mugoya said transfers to the government were not made and that there was no effort to perform this function.

“As a result, unreconciled revenue figures stand at billions of SSP”.

There was also a lack of proper management of property and facilities that implied that Deng ‘‘should have initiated maintenance of a register of non-current assets, including buildings, vehicles, furniture, computers, and generators’’, but there were no such records in existence.

‘‘No such records exist to date, thus risking the loss of NRS assets for which the government has sacrificed its meagre financial resources.”

Dr Patrick Mugoya is a Tanzanian national who was appointed as the Commissioner-General of the South Sudan National Revenue Authority (NRA) last year on October 7.

Upon his appointment in Juba, last year, Dr Mugoya told the media that he would develop a strategic plan that would enable a transparent and accountable collection of non-oil revenues.

 “As you just witnessed, we have just concluded the signing of my contract as the new Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority. I am supposed to hit the ground running. First, we will fully operationalise the National Revenue Authority. We will immediately take measures to make sure that the NRA is fully operational, ” he said.

He added that they would ensure that the NRA formulates or develops in a participatory manner. In this regard, the key stakeholders were to have a strategic plan for the tax collector that would ensure that non-oil revenue mobilisation is enhanced in a transparent, efficient, effective, and accountable manner.

He promised to ensure that revenue collection was not disrupted.

“We will put into place all these measures while at the same time sealing loopholes and revenue leakages in terms of tax evasion, unscrupulous exemptions, tax avoidance, smuggling and the like, as immediate measures.”

He was the former deputy commissioner of the Tanzania Revenue Authority.