The West New Britain Governor, has welcomed Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill's intention to offload GST collection to the provinces.
Sasindran Muthuvel said it is a step in the right direction in reforming and fulfilling the National Government’s promise to give greater financial powers to the provinces to address capacity issues there.
"It is certainly a way to go to improve services in the provinces that will also be beneficial for security purposes, especially on lives of IRC officers going to some of the high-risk provinces amidst security threats.
“Hence it is better for respective provincial governments to collect taxes since it’s in the provincial government's best interest to financially survive and give services to its people.”
The intention to decentralise GST collection to the provincial level has been described as paving the way forward for capacity building.