By Musa Paul Feika
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh has disclosed that GST handles for small and medium scale businesses in the form of micro tax owe the Government of Sierra Leone over Le 2.5 Billion; with the Committee insofar haven recovered Le 1 Billion so far.
Hon. Conteh however revealed that some of these owing entities have made payment plans for the recovery.
On the issue regarding Mobile Network Operators and Internet Service Providers, Hon. Conteh disclosed that 10.5 Billion Old Leone have been recovered and paid into the Universal Access Development Funds.
He said for the transit account and machinery operations; a huge amount of money has also been paid into the Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF). The Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the PAC made these disclosures on Thursday, 23rd August, 2024, at the Kenema District Council. According to him, recoveries totaling 40 Billion Old Leones have been made in the space of three months from tax arrears for the auditing periods, 2021 and 2022 respectively. The Chairman said that the Committee looked into issues such as Corporate Taxes, GST, PAYE and withholding taxes to ensure these recoveries.
Relating to GST, the Chairman disclosed that the Committee looked at eleven tax payers so far, all of whom were invited including the Ministry of Finance and the National Revenue Authority (NRA) to assist with the inquiry process. “With this new strategy,” Hon. Tawa Conteh maintained, “we were able to recover to recover some of the monies supposed to have been recovered by NRA in the estimation of over 30 Billion Old Leones all being paid to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).