East Sepik Provincial Government Signs MOU with IRC
Allan Bird
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The East Sepik Provincial Government signed a MOU with IRC at the IRC Provincial Office in Wewak on Wednesday.
In a small but significant event attended by Governor Allan Bird and his administration and Commissioner General Sam Koim and his senior, the MOU was inked to forge a partnership between the ESPG and IRC to increase compliance activities in the province.
Governor Bird said this event was a culmination of two and half years of preparatory work. “One of the first things I did when taking office as Governor was to check the internal revenue sources. I directed my administration to partner with IRC in increasing the revenue collections in the province”
“The partnership occurred more than 2 years ago, but this MOU simply formalises that arrangement”. He added.
In encouraging business representatives who attended the ceremony, the Governor urged the businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. Equally taking responsibility, Mr Bird said “there are businesses that faithfully pay taxes but it now boils down to the Government to provide services in return to demonstrate that the taxes are actually being used for its intended purposes.
If we squander the money or divert money to private pockets, it discourages businesses from willingly pay their taxes. It is a two way thing and in ESP, I am doing my best to show that it is not one way traffic”
Commissioner General Koim thanked the Governor and his administration for supporting the Wewak IRC office to carry out their work for the last two years. “With your help, we were able to increase the collections for the last two years and in return, we have given a bigger share of the 60% of the GST collected back to the province.”
“With the increased business activities in Maprik and now Angoram coming up, and the new agricultural projects initiated with the European Union funding, I am seeing more potential for taxes hence I will be increasing manpower at our office here” Mr Koim added.
The Wewak office has moved to a new and spacious office to cater for increased revenue collection activities.
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