DECLARE TO INCREASE SACU RECEIPTS - NEAL

MBABANE – The Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg has pleaded with emaSwati to ensure that they declare all items bought from other countries upon arrival at the ports of entry.

In yesterday’s ‘finance in focus’ episode, the minister unpacked how the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) receipts work from the contribution by member States to the distribution of the funds. He then pleaded with emaSwati to ensure that they declare all their items bought from the different SACU member States, in order for the country to be able to get what rightfully belongs to it. Rijkenberg said the benefits of declaring the items are two fold: claiming of the Value Added Tax (VAT) charged in the other countries when one buys items from those countries and also assists the country get its due SACU receipts.

Customs

SACU is the oldest customs union in the world, established in 1910 between five member states: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. The union allows these five countries to share trade-related customs, excise revenue and for the free movement of goods and services within the Union. All customs and excise duties are collected in a common revenue pool and shared among the countries according to a revenue-sharing formula. South Africa is the largest contributor to the pool, making up 97 per cent of the total contribution, followed by Namibia at 1.4 per cent, Botswana at 1.0 per cent, Lesotho at 0.4 per cent and Eswatini at 0.2 per cent.

Receipts

It is worth noting that Eswatini has just recently received E3.25 billion SACU receipts this month. It is worth noting that for the 2024/2025 financial year. Eswatini is again receiving the highest SACU receipts. It was reported that in this financial year, Eswatini will receive a total of E13.06 billion in SACU receipts. Compared to the 2023/2024 level, SACU revenue for 2024/25 grew by 1115 per cent, in the 2023/202/4 financial year the country’s SACU receipts were E11.75 billion and were 102 per cent higher than the E5.8 billion of 2022/2023.
All customs, excise and additional duties (trade taxes) collected in the SACU common customs area are paid into the common revenue pool and shared among member States.

Revenue-sharing

Member States’ share of the pool is disbursed or determined by the SACU agreement’s revenue-sharing formula. The current revenue-sharing formula has three components: The Customs Component, the Excise Component and the Development Component. The Customs share is allocated based on each country’s share of intra-SACU imports. Meanwhile, it has also been reported that Eswatini’s inflation rate continued its downward tour in September 2024 to 36 per cent for goods and 37 per cent for services offering some relief to consumers and businesses. This is contained in the Central Statistics Office (CSO) CPI report for September.

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