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SRA CALLED TO ACCOUNT FOR E332 MILLION

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LOBAMBA - No one is immune from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). As a result, the Eswati Revenue Authority (SRA) is expected to appear before the PAC to account for about E332 535 660, which does not appear in the government systems yet it was declared as recovered.


The Accountant General, Dumisile Ngwenya, reported that since 2017, they had been making requests to the SRA to provide the necessary documents showing where the revenue was collected from, but nothing had been forthcoming.


Ngwenya informed the PAC that the latest excuse from SRA came as early as December 2018, when the tax company allegedly said it could not furnish the information because it was moving offices. At some point Ngwenya alleged that SRA sent them some computer documents of the money, but it was not a breakdown of where it was collected from, but just a printout of the figure.


Lubombo Region MP Lorraine Nxumalo, who is a member of the PAC, said it was unacceptable that an organisation like the SRA, which was very strict on demanding documents from businesses, was not complying.
“When you are a businessperson the SRA insists on producing of documents from businesspeople and if that doesn’t happen, they make their own estimates,” said Nxumalo.


She further said the SRA would also make the companies pay penalties.
MP Nxumalo said SRA, by failing to produce these documents, maybe rubbed off some debts.  “It’s very unprofessional,” she said. Mbabane West MP Musa Zwane said it was not good that the accountant general’s office accepted the excuse from SRA that they were moving office. He said they must pick up the pace because the documents dated as far back as 2017.


Similar sentiments were shared by Lobamba MP Allen Stewart.
Manzini Region MP Busisiwe Mavimbela said it did not make sense that the AG’s office would receive money from SRA without knowing where it came from. “SRA is a very strict organisation when it comes to their customers so I do not understand what is happening,” she said.

Deputy Chairperson of the PAC and Gege MP Musa Kunene wondered why the AG had not come with the officers from SRA to give an explanation on the money, which was later reported to have been an oversight in the accounting system. “We need the officers from SRA to explain this mess,” said Kunene.


He was supported by Mtfongwaneni MP Roy Fanourakis. “We can’t just move past this matter without interrogating them,” he said.
The PAC resolved that the SRA would appear before them when the Ministry of Finance held its sitting because the tax company was a parastatal of the latter.


Unsupported


Meanwhile, the auditor general in the 2017 report, had submitted that there was an unsupported transaction from the SRA. The auditor general reported that according to the statement of outstanding revenue, income amounting to about E332 million was declared as recovered by SRA as at March 31, 2017.
“The recovered amount is partial repayment of accumulated outstanding revenue from the authority, amounting to E3 519 802 140 leaving the balance of E3 187 266 480,” reported the AG.


The auditor general submitted that the concern was that the recovered revenue did not have supporting documents from SRA, which was responsible for collecting and reporting to the Ministry of Finance on taxes collected.
The AG said Financial and Accounting Instruction 0508 stated that full particulars of the purpose of payment should be provided and when the payment was made, a receipt showing the name of the person who made the payment should be issued.  However, in her response, Ngwenya, the Accountant General, reported that the statement of outstanding revenue (the amount of E332 million) was declared as recovered, which was a partial recovery from a reported outstanding amount of E2 165 480 690 as at March 31, 2016.
She said a request was sent to SRA through a letter dated August 7, 2017 requesting for submission of documents as they were the custodian of these documents. However, they were unable to obtain the supporting documents.
“She also reported that an error of overstatement amounting to E546 282 358.46 had been identified on the outstanding revenue balance for the year 2016/2017 where SRA financial statement declared E2 640 984 121 against the reported E3 187 266 480.

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