Authorities of The Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) and The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) on Monday, 25 January, 2021 commenced a two-day intensive training for Enumerators, on Rental Property Survey, convened at the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) conference hall in Kanifing.
In his official statement, head of the country’s revenue authority, Commissioner General (CG) Mr. Yankuba Darboe, put on record the fruitful partnership the GRA and GBoS institutions have been enjoying over the years. He underlined the importance of the training, hoping it would go a long way in helping the institutions in their operations. The GRA chief had challenged the gathered enumerators to take the training seriously.
Speaking at the forum, the Director of Technical Services at GRA, Mr. Yayha Manneh informed them GRA is implementing its 4th Corporate Strategic Plan 2020-2024, and one of the key priorities under the new plan is to maximize revenue mobilisation.
Under this priority, as the GRA senior official enunciated, multi-pronged strategies had been put in place ranging from Compliance improvement, Increased audit and enforcement capacities, Integration of risk management practices, elimination of high tax expenditures through the strengthening of the revenue laws by removing generous incentives, to conduct of surveys intones areas or increase evidence in existing areas for better decision making. He also cited tax-base expansion activities which include: Registration campaigns for new taxpayers; increase of access to GRA services; and automation of all GRA processes and procedures.
Director Manneh said this rental property survey would be second of its kind–the first one was done in 2008. He disclosed that the GRA Management was happy to engage GBoS, describing the latter a “trusted partner” to the Authority and also “the best in the country” in terms of expertise in research and surveys.
The revenue authority’s Technical Services Director intimated to the participants that, as supervisors and enumerators hired to conduct that important exercise, “we are depending on your trustworthiness, honesty and professionalism to do the right thing by collecting the most accurate information from the respondents”.
Manneh went on: “The data you will be collecting will be used by the Authority to manage compliance of this category of taxpayers.
“For that reason, we appeal for your best effort during the exercise. We are cognizant to the fact that, nobody wants to pay tax. But to make tax system more equitable, we need everyone earning above the tax-free threshold of D24,000 per annum to contribute their fair share so that together, we can build a great country we can all be proud to call home.”
The opening session was graced by senior officials of the two institutions.
