Head of the newly established Namibia Revenue Agency (Namra), Commissioner Sam Shivute, said no corruption will be tolerated as the agency aims to collect a revenue target of N.dollars 48 billion during the 2021/22 financial year from all eligible taxpayers.

Speaking at a media engagement here on Tuesday, Shivute said Namra was created to improve service delivery with integrity and professionalism in effort to positively impact the livelihoods of every Namibian.

Shivute indicated that from April to August 2021, the agency collected N.dollars 23 billion of the total revenue of N.dollars 48 billion (N.dollars 48 817 281 886).

“Our mandate is to mobilise revenue to enable the State to provide dignified standards of living for all our people. We will not tolerate corruption at Namra. We will make sure any corruption that could have been happening in the past is seized,” he said.

Shivute equally said to improve service delivery to taxpayers, the agency is committed to re-engineer the process of collecting tax collection through automated systems for customs data and the Integrated Tax Administration System (Itas), amongst others.

Speaking at the same event, Head of Domestic Taxes Idi Itope said Namibia has a total of 887 500 registered taxpayers who currently owe the Receiver of Revenue N.dollars 12 billion in capital that cannot be written off.

“The owed monies will be collected through various means such as pension, assets and other valuable means. There is no escaping from paying tax,” he noted.

Itope further noted that Namra aims to strengthen taxpayer stakeholder relationships, which will promote voluntary compliance and raise awareness as well as tackle prevalent tax avoidance and evasion, in efforts to help grow the economy.

Namra was launched on 12 April 2021 to facilitate all tax, customs and excise related matters that were previously done by inland revenue department of the Ministry of Finance.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency