Benefit shortfall

Lao NEWS on LNTV: PM urges to improve mechanisms for collecting revenue.23/8/2016

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• published: 13 Sep 2016
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VO Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith urges to improve mechanisms for collecting revenue, warns to penalise corrupt officials. INTRO: Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has called for the financial sector to improve mechanisms for collecting revenue and addressing financial leaks while warning to penalise corrupt officials. STORY: Prime Minister Thongloun made the call while addressing a nation-wide budgetary and treasury meeting held in Vientiane on Thursday, which was attended by more than 400 officials. The Premiere’s remarks came following a report about the revenue shortfall over the past 10 months of 2015-16 fiscal year, which could further escalate budgetary tensions and hold back national development. He reiterated the need for transparency in collecting revenue in which officials in charge must enhance their responsibilities and be trustworthy to serve the nation and people. The Premiere said that mechanisms or organisations not working properly would need to be addressed promptly. The government would not allow dysfunctional mechanisms or organisations and other barriers to continue to disrupt revenue collection efforts. He added that officials who violated financial regulations and laws needed to be stopped to prevent them from conducting further such malpractices. The Prime Minister encouraged corrupt officials to change their attitudes and instead dedicate their efforts to serving the interests of the nation as the government is determined to tackle the misappropriation. Referring to a lesson learnt from China, Prime Minister Thongloun said the Chinese government tried not to leave any opportunity for any officials to be corrupt given that corruption not only resulted in the state losing huge amounts of revenue but also losing capable officials. He said it was critical to collect revenue through electronic systems while closing gaps that emerged in the financial sector while being transparent to serve the nation. In April this year the National Assembly approved the government's proposal to reduce the 2015-16 fiscal year budget. This meant the plan for revenue collection for this fiscal year was adjusted down from 26.159 trillion kip to 23.7 trillion kip and budget expenditure from 31.946 trillion kip to 31.118 trillion kip. According to the Ministry of Finance, the revenue collection over the past 10 months of the fiscal year attained only 74.52 percent of the annual plan. The government projected that the revenue collection might not accomplish the target again this fiscal year which will end on September 30. However, Prime Minister Thongloun urged financial officials to concentrate on collecting the revenue above the target set for the next quarter (October-December, 2016) in order to offset the shortfall in this fiscal year. He said over the past one or two months, revenue collection in several provinces had increased significantly after the government reinforced its inspection on financial sources and closed loopholes which resulted in previous financial leaks. Laos is a least developed country in Asia which requires a huge financial capital to boost socio-economic development, but since 2013, the country encountered the revenue shortfall, forcing the government to stall many development projects to avoid a fiscal crisis.