KABUL: The presidential palace on Monday said based on the decision of the High Economic Council, government plans to establish a center through which the income of municipalities and the transport sector will be collected.
According to the presidential palace, they are trying to establish the center as soon as possible in order to avoid extortion on the highways.
The High Economic Council recently decided to regulate the collection of such revenue which is currently being collected in person by officials.
“Our traders and drivers have made complaints that they are paying money on highways; the plan comes from the finance ministry and was sent to the high economic commission council to establish a single center where revenue will be collected in order to ensure transparency,” Shah Hussain Murtazawi, acting director of the president’s spokesman’s office said.
“Currently the income is being collected through different channels, but we intend to collect the transport and municipality revenue through a single channel,” finance ministry spokesman, Ajmal Abdul Rahimzai said.
Meanwhile, the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) said extortion on highways has created huge challenges for traders and that by establishing a single center national revenue collection will increase and corruption and embezzlement will be controlled.
ACCI however emphasized that the center should be digitalized.
“To avoid corruption, competent and professional people should be appointed in this center and the revenue should be collected digitally,” ACCI spokesman, Seyam Pesarlay said.
Meanwhile the finance ministry said in the first six months of this year more than eight billion AFs in national revenue has been collected and that if revenue collection is managed well, the national income will increase.
