South Sudan Traffic Police officers seen counting money collected from motorists in Juba in 2019 | Credit | Courtesy

The National Revenue Authority has introduced a security-enhanced financial receipt to stop traffic police officers from diverting money collected from motorists.

The document known as Form 15 is a collection of daily 50 receipts that have been authenticated by the revenue authority and the traffic police department.

“This form is designed based on the requirement of the revenue authority, we have a logo of the traffic police on the far left on the receipt, in the middle is the logo of the NRA and then that of the police,” said Erjok Bullen, acting commissioner-general

According to the NRA, traffic police officers shall also be given badge numbers than shall differentiate them from fake officers, whose intentions are to extort the public.

In 2019, the NRA admitted that it could not guarantee whether money collected by the traffic police officers regularly is remitted to the Single Treasury Account.

The single account was established to ensure public resources are not diverted into individual pockets.

Members of the public have often complained of extortion by police officers, whom they say coerce them to pay bribes.

There is a large presence of traffic police officers almost at every junction, intersection or roundabout in Juba.

Every checkpoint is manned by at least 6 police officers who collect money from unsuspecting motorists.

Some motorists say the officers use fake receipt books to blackmail them into paying, often less or more cash than the official fine.

Sometimes the form is purportedly cancelled, leaving the offenders to drive off free.

Bullen revealed on Monday that the newly designed receipts will help reduce some of the leakages in the collection system.

“We also designed a tag number to be given to officers on duty from their headquarters….to avoid officers putting on a uniform just to come and extort money,” Bullen added.

For his part, the Director-General of Traffic Police welcomed the initiative by the revenue authority.

Major-General Kon John Akot urged the public to identify traffic police officers by their tag numbers and report any incident of corruption.

“Report any issues regarding extortion by a traffic officer using the number on the tag not using his or her name. Call us and we will come to your rescue,” he told the public.