Rwandan to head South Sudan Revenue Authority

Eugene Torero a Rwandan national has been appointed Director General of South Sudan Revenue Authority. He was approved by South Sudanese lawmakers on Tuesday.

After several deliberations, members of the country’s Transitional National Legislative Assembly endorsed Torero to oversee the running of the body that will be tasked with assessing and collecting domestic taxes, customs duties and other revenues specified by law.

What, however, dominated Tuesday’s debate in the national legislative assembly concerned whether to appoint a national or foreigner as the first Director General of the revenue collection body.

But David Nailo Mayo, chairperson of the parliament’s specialised committee for economic planning, argued that the Rwandan national has a wealth of experiences likely to benefit South Sudan.

Torero is currently the director of trade policy at Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA), a position he has held since October 2015. Previously, however, he was responsible for TMEA South Sudan country office, during which he oversaw the design as well as the implementation of the customs development and trade facilitation programme.

The Rwandan national had, prior to joining TMEA, also held various positions within Rwanda Revenue Authority, including leading customs services from 2005 – 2010. He was previously a member of the Rwanda doing business task force from 2007-2010 and oversaw Rwanda’s reform efforts on the trading across borders and tax payment indicators of the famous World Bank Doing Business report.

When South Sudan got its independence five years ago, one of its daunting challenges was how it would diversify an economy, largely dependent on oil revenues, which supports 98 percent of its budget.

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