By Bida Elly David<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
East African Business Council (EABC) urges South Sudan government to consider extending validity period of investment certificates to a decade in order to foster a thriving economy.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This concern was raised on the 3rd day of Central Equatoria Business Union\u2019s Juba Economic Forum, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n John Bosco, Chairperson of EABC said renewing investment certificates annually is costly.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nowhere a country renews an investment certificate every year; the renewal in South Sudan costs 1,000 United States dollars,\u201d decried Bosco.<\/p>\n He urged the government to build confidence in the investment system.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to build confidence in our systems, processes, and applications; foreign investors should be given at least 10 years to renew that certificate,\u201d he appealed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sends a negative signal to anyone who wants to invest in this country; let us remove that $1,000 because it is a costly investment,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n Mr. Bosco urged the government to have a long-term vision of mending the country\u2019s economy by creating a conducive environment for foreign investments.<\/p>\n In response to the appeal, Dhieu Mathok Diing, the minister of investment, challenged the foreign investors\u2019 argument, saying it wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot extend any renewal period; this is the law that is guaranteed in the Investment Act; leave it if you want; is it a necessity for the government to renew? I think no,\u201d he reacted.<\/p>\n Minister Dhieu challenged the investor for the call, saying the yearly charges against renewal of their licence are so little compared to the profit they make in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cPaying those renewal fees means these investors are getting money; that money out of the millions of dollars you are getting in South Sudan is nothing,\u201d he rebutted.<\/p>\n The investment minister stated that it is not easy to implement the investor\u2019s call, saying it will also require the investment act to undergo serious amendments through parliament.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Charles Achaye, a national investor, disagreed with the EABC\u2019s complaint, saying South Sudanese are denied making payments in order to purchase goods from overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe South Sudan investors are facing currency rejection and payment while wanting to import goods from outside countries,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n He said there are quite a number of countries rejecting payments from South Sudan investors on account of political sanctions and money laundering.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is spoiling the reputation of our country through Kenya or Uganda for your goods to be shipped to South Sudan; those partaking in the currency rejection are mainly the European and Asian countries,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bida Elly David East African Business Council (EABC) urges South Sudan government to consider extending validity period of investment certificates to a decade in order to foster a thriving economy. This concern was raised on the 3rd day of Central Equatoria Business Union\u2019s Juba Economic Forum, on Wednesday.[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/John-Bosco-Chairperson-EAC-Business-Community.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22165,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22163\/revisions\/22165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}