The Liberia Revenue Authority says it couldn’t meet its revenue projection of US$1 Billion because the Senate failed to approve the funding requested.
By Lincoln G. Peters
Monrovia, Liberia, December 13, 2024 – The Commissioner General of the Liberia Revenue Authority, James Dorbor Jallah, blames members of the Liberian Senate for his failure to raise the revenue envelop to US$1 billion, as bragged and targeted during the 2024 draft National Budget hearing.
Commissioner General Jallah terms failure to close leakages and mobilize more revenue as disappointing.
Responding to senators’ question here on Thursday, December 12, 2024, during the 2025 draft National Budget hearing regarding his failure to raise the Liberian economy to US$1 billion as promised, Jallah said the spirit and ambition to move the revenue envelop to US$1 billion is still alive and strong.
According to him, he requested an additional US$6 million from the Senate to address some of the areas that he had indicated to them to grow the revenue envelope, such as the LRA being understaffed, limited auditors, and the status of limitation to go after businesses, among others.
“This august body, through the Pro-temp, Senator Nyonblee Kangar-Lawrence, assured me that we could have gotten the financial resources. In fact, in my second appearance, I even gave my appreciation to the Senate for the commitment on the additional fund. But, when the budget finally came out, we saw we were allocated US$2 million. When the recast was done, US$1.4 million of that amount was removed”, he explains in disappointment.
Jallah laments that because of that, he has not been able to hire a single soul to beef up the back office function crucial to the LRA, adding that the structure of the Liberian tax system sets declarations by business people.
However, the Commissioner General is optimistic that if the country can invest in the revenue mobilization system, they can achieve the US$1 billion revenue envelope, disclosing he had alternative discussions with senators and some Executive members to change the Revenue Authority’s financing mechanism.
He says instead of installing them in the budget where it’s a game of chance, he proposed that the LRA law be amended to allocate a percentage of the domestic revenue that they will mobilize as their operating budget annually, something he believes will give them the space to be able to invest in material and human resources to stop leakages.
“If I don’t get the resources, I will not do it. To tell you the truth, senator, it is getting disappointing because you know what can be done. Some things can be done easily so that we can close the leakages and bring more revenue; you can’t do them because you don’t have the resources. It’s really, really difficult.”
He points out that one of the major challenges at the LRA is its operations outside of Monrovia, with customs offices operating in counties but are not connected to the tax paying system, leaving people to collect taxes and keep it for months before being sent to head office in Monrovia because of lack of connectivity, which is dangerous.
He says the Authority has acquired 50 pieces of Star Links devise through a World Bank project that they are installing to ensure access to connectivity to do real-time revenue collection and increase transparency, adding that these are some of the reasons they needed the funds, noting that GST or General Service Tax is also part of the plan.
“We need to roll out electronic building machines so that when companies make their sales, everybody will be required to make their sales through the system that we will provide. LRA wants the resources so that we can invest in that equipment. With that, we will get real-time information. If we really want to hit this as the World Bank, IMF, and others have projected, in the next three years, that can happen when we invest because there are many leakages,’’ CG Jallah underscores.
He indicates that the system provides for business individuals to operate, and after that, they will be the ones to tell the LRA what they have made, so the only way they can be tracked is for the LRA to institute an audit, and the LRA is very short of auditors.
“Because of that, many taxpayers go unaudited for a protracted period. Also, we have a status of limitation, which provides that if you don’t audit for five years, you can no longer go back and audit them. That is why I thought that the audit and back office functions are so crucial, and we needed to be able to hire urgently. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get the resources”, Jallah reminds the Senate. Editing by Jonathan Browne
