THE National Capital District Commission will seek court interpretation on the recent decision of IRC Commissioner General Sam Koim to split the NCD Goods & Services Tax revenue.
Mr Koim late last week detailed it out that the NCD GST Revenue of 60% will no long be paid to NCD but will be directly sliced to Central (10%), Gulf (3%), and Motu-Koita Assembly (2%) with the balance remitted to NCD.
NCD Governor Powes Parkop however today in a press conference disputed Mr Koims decision saying it is legally and ethically wrong and he will seek advice from the court on this.
Governor Parkop said Mr Koim is legally obliged to draw further commitments to Central Provincial Government from the National Government and not from NCD.
“This is legally correct thing to do as it is the order made by the Supreme Court in matter SCA 89 of 2013,” he said.
Governor Parkop said ethically the decision is also wrong.
“Ethically, it is also the proper thing to do as the National Government gets over K1.6 billion in GST from the city, whereas NCD receives less than K260 million,” he said
Mr Koim earlier on also stated that NCDC in accordance with section 33 (2) of the NCDC Act 2001 (as amended) was mandatorily required to distribute directly from the 60% due to NCD, to Central, Gulf and Motu-Koita Assembly (MKA).
However, Governor Parkop denied that saying they have not breached their obligations to Central Province.
“In fact, in the last 14 years, NCDC has remitted a total of K140,221,000 (K140 million) to Central Province. In 2020 we remitted K12,050,000 and in 2019 NCDC remitted to CPG K14,000.000.
The amount has progressively increased as NCDCs GST component increases,” he said.
He confirmed that they have yet to remit to Central Provincial Government (CPG) for the last 5 to six months which Central Governor Robert Agarobe claimed totaling up to K10 million.
The CPG has also released an ultimatum to NCD that stating that before Friday 4.06 if NCD failed to remit the outstanding GST to Central, then they will close down all public utilities such as power, water supply and roads that is servicing the city of Port Moresby.
Governor Parkop on the other end said he will be going to the Supreme Court on Friday to get an interim injunction challenging the recent decision of Mr Koim.
Parkop said if he is successful in getting an interim stay order he will later apply for a permanent injunction to put to rest this matter.