By Kemo Cham
Despite the devastating effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on Sierra Leone’s economy, the National Revenue Authority (NRA) has performed well enough in terms of revenue generation, a new report reveals.
The report, the outcome of a study by the Financial Management Consortium, indicates that if the current trend of performance by the taxman continues, it is highly likely to meet its revised revenue target for 2020.
NRA had targeted Le6.47 trillion at the beginning of the year. But the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to revise this downward to Le5.38 trillion.
The Financial Management Consortium is a coalition of civil society organizations which monitor government’s spending with the goal of encouraging prudent expenditure. The group, which comprises the Budget Advocacy Network (BAN), Christian Aid, the Center for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL) and Restless Development, have been tracking the monthly domestic revenue raised by NRA.
According to BAN, which gathered and analysed the data, its findings show that NRA is doing well in terms of revenue generation, despite the effect of the pandemic. The researchers looked at seven months of domestic revenue collection in 2020 and compared this to same in 2019.
According to the data, between January and July 2020, NRA collected Le3.1 trillion, which represents 57 percent of the revised target.
“This implies that on average, NRA has been able to collect the sum of Le438.9 billion on a monthly basis. In this regard, the average monthly collection based on the revised target is Le449.91 billion. If at least Le10 billion is added by NRA on the current average, they might hit their revised target for 2020,” part of the report reads.
The report, titled: ‘2020 Revised Domestic Revenue and 2023 Revenue To GDP Target…Is the National Revenue Authority Hitting Their Target in Midst of the Covid-19?’ was unveiled during a live TV programme on the Africa Young Voices Media Empire.
Abdurahman M. Sesay, Senior Programmes Officer at BAN, launched the report alongside NRA’s Dr Sheku Kamara.
Sesay said during the programme that the study was part of efforts by the consortium to check the government’s progress in meeting its target of domestic revenue to GDP, as set by President Julius Maada Bio.
The SLPP, in its manifesto for the 2018 elections, promised to increase the country’s domestic revenue to GDP from 10percent at the time to 20 percent by 2023.
Sesay said the current trend is that on average per day the NRA collects Le21.3 billion. He noted that for the seven month period, June saw the highest revenue collection at 23.2 billion in 2020, while in 2019, the collection was significantly high in June and March, with Le25.4 billion and Le26.2 billion, respectively.
“This show that we are still not doing bad in terms of the revenue collection,” Sesay said.
The second part of the assessment is the monthly revenue collection to GDP, which the authors say is important because it determines the progress towards realizing the government’s commitment to increase the revenue to GDFP.
According to the report, on average NRA collected 1.08 in 2019 and 1. 23 in 2020 in the first seven month of domestic revenue to GDP.
Sesay said that at this rate, NRA may not be able to hit the 20 percent revenue to GDP target, unless it maintains a 1.7 percent of GDP per month of collection.
“This is not too far from that. We have three years to go. This means progress. If Covid-19 doesn’t get worse than this and we have the required support and compliance from the citizens, we hope that they can meet the target,” he said.
According to Dr Kamara, who is the Deputy Director, Research Monitoring and Planning at NRA, the progress made in terms of revenue generation, despite the impact of Covid-19, was due to numerous reforms the Authority and the central government implemented, including increasing the working days for its staff and introduction of integrity measures geared towards closing all rooms for leakage. He said these reforms hold the key to attaining the larger goals of both the NRA and the government.
“A lot of reforms have been undertaken and a lot more are ongoing. If the trend continues, we are hopeful to meet our target,” he said.
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