Chief Secretary to Government, Isaac Lupari, today addressed the staff of the Internal Revenue Commission in Port Moresby.
Again he emphasised the need for a change in attitude towards work, particularly for public servants.
The IRC is the sixth Government body the Chief Secretary has visited since taking office.
Almost all of the IRC staff were present at the Taurama Aquatic Centre, where Chief Secretary to Government, Isaac Lupari, gave his address.
It’s part of his aim to visit and talk to all public servants and promote the concept of teamwork.
But his main focus was encouraging a change of attitude towards work, saying it’s a major obstacle to development and service delivery.
Ambassador Lupari said 2017 is going to be a challenging year. With the Total Revenue and Grants for the 2017 Budget projected at about K11 billion, Lupari said K9 billion of that revenue has to be collected by the IRC.
Lupari said the IRC has a K2 billion Tax Liability each year; he said its money that could be used to settle some of the country’s debts. Mr Lupari said when it comes to Tax, officers of IRC must do their job because failure to do so means denying services to the people.
IRC Commissioner General, Betty Palaso, also told staff that it is how the IRC performs that has a direct impact on the country and the people. It affects the Governments Budget, affects national plans and trickles down to the basic service delivery to ordinary Papua New Guineans.
Mr Lupari said K4 billion is spent on the salaries and wages of Public Servants each year; that’s 7% of the National Budget. He said it was their responsibility of public servants to ensure the tax payers of PNG get the value for their investments.
