By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
The Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) with funding from the World Bank Fiscal Management Project (GFMDP) has held its maiden Taxpayers Charter aimed to create awareness about the taxpayer’s right and obligation.
The taxpayer’s charter defines taxpayers’ rights and obligations under the income and Value added tax Act (2012), Custom and Excise Act (2010) and other Revenue laws administration by the Authority.
Speaking at the opening ceremony on behalf of the GRA Boss, Mr Alieu Bittaye, Director of Risk Management, Reform, Modernization and IT at GRA said “the GFMDP Project is financing the acquisition and implementation of an integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) for The Gambia Revenue Authority to replace the current tax collection and accounting system GAMTAXNET.”
He said a key component of this project support is to provide support to taxpayers by enhancing taxpayer services which include the formulation of a taxpayer charter.
He said that the taxpayer’s charter defines taxpayer’s right and obligations under the income and Value Added Tax Act (2012), Custom and Excise Act (2010) and other Revenue laws administration by the Authority.
As a Revenue Administration, he said, they cherish these rights in their dealings with taxpayers.
He therefore urged the stakeholders to thoroughly review the document and bring in their comments and contributions to enrich the charter which serves the interest of both the taxpayers and GRA, while thanking the World Bank, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs for funding this initiative and the GRA staff for spreading this activity.
For her part, the Project Manager GFMDP, Ndey Anta Taal said the project is an International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, at an amount of $35 million covering a period of 5 years.
She explained that the project has three components, 1 is to strengthen the fiscal management and development project to which GRA is a beneficiary. The component has allocated 17 million for the expansion of revenue collection and procurement systems of the Gambia.
“In this regard, we are supporting GRA to implement key activities including this validation workshop, the ITAS Business re-engineering process, the compliance’s management strategy, project management training just to name a few,” madam Taal explained.
