The Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) on Monday commenced a two-week intensive training programme for its staff, centering around ‘projects and contracts management’. With funding support from the World Bank, the training is being conducted by the Accra-based Ramsys Consulting Services–a leading training and consulting firm that has been serving leading businesses in many countries.
Underway at a local hotel in Senegambia, the training aims to bring staff together to talk about effective management of projects and contracts under the Authority.
In his remarks at the opening ceremony, the GRA boss Commissioner General Yankuba Darboe hailed the Gambia Fiscal Management Development Project (GFMDP) under the World Bank (WB), for the support being rendered to GRA in implementing its activities. He said GRA had been embarking on a number of reform programmes in different areas, and they are being implemented through various projects.
“The Gambia Fiscal Management Development Project, with support from the World Bank, is financing the acquisition and implementation of an Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) to replace the existing GAMTAXNET System. This will contribute to improving tax administration processes and GRA’s digital transformation,” Commissioner General Darboe told the gathering.
He added that, to successfully manage the projects under the reform programmes, it was deemed necessary to train the project Steering Committee, and function and technical team in Project and contract management. “The purpose of this workshop is therefore, to build the capacity of key staff of the GRA, especially those directly involved in the implementation of the Gambia Fiscal Management Development project.”
Darboe is hopeful that at the end of training, the participants should be exposed to project and contract management techniques, including tools used to ensure a project is delivered on time, within budget and to acceptable standards.
He informed that the firm (Ramsys) contracted to conduct the said training was carefully selected by the Reforms and Modernization Committee through a competitive bidding process. The GRA chief thanked the firm for accompanying his institution in this reform journey, but also challenged them to deliver high quality training as expected.
Deputy Commissioner General and Head of Domestic Taxes, Mr. Essa Jallow, speaking at the opening, expressed delights to be associated with this project and contract management training. He pointed out that the Ramsys “is not a stranger to GRA” as a lot of their staff benefited from their training programmes in Ghana. He commended Ramsys for being very instrumental in assisting GRA to build the capacity of its staff.
Deputy Commissioner General Jallow told his audience the two weeks training on contracts and project management is part of the activities in the 2021 work plan under the ITAS project, supported by the World Bank to the tune of $13 million dollars.
The project has the overarching objective of modernizing their tax administration for increased operational efficiency and effectiveness, according to him. This, he added, would encompass the re-engineering of their business processes so as to optimize them and also procure a new ITAS to replace the existing Gamtaxnet which had already outlived its usefulness.
“The project also anticipates improvements in the delivery of taxpayer services with the introduction of e-filing and e-payment facilities, all geared towards the facilitation of taxpayer compliance among other benefits associated with the implementation of this project.
“Hence, one of the main outcomes of the project is to enhance the capacity of GRA as far as domestic revenue mobilization is concerned,” Jallow stated.
