24 Aug 2005

State owed more than 112 million US dollars

10:27 am on 24 August 2005

Fiji's auditor general has revealed that people owe the state more than US$112 million.

Eroni Vatuleka's report for 2004 shows that about two-thirds of this amount, or US$77 million, is owed in taxes to the Revenue and Customs Authority.

Th ministry of works is owed almost US$15 millionwhile the Judicial Department has failed to collect US$5.5 million dollars in unpaid taxes.

Substantial sums of money are also owed to the agriculture ministry, the department of lands for land rents and the ministry of civil aviation for meteorological services.

Even the ministry of information has failed to collect US$366,000 for telecommunications licence fees.