By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The Commissioner General of the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA), Mr. Yankuba Darboe, has underscored the need for the GRA to recognize the nexus between enhancing its revenue generation capacity, germane laws, and generally acceptable best practices.
CG Darboe made this remark on Monday as he addressed the opening ceremony of a five-day African French Development-funded training of 30 GRA staff on revenue laws organized by the Legal Department and Board Services of the GRA.
“We must recognize the important link between increasing our revenue collection and having the appropriate laws, and best practices generally acceptable by all civilized nations,” he stressed.
Darboe reminded participants of the GRA’s mandate of ensuring that sufficient revenues are being mobilized to finance government programs and other development endeavors.
“This means reflecting on the progressivity of our tax systems but also on the overall balance between all types of taxes. The mobilization of revenue is, therefore, critical in the development of our country,” he emphasized.
The revenue mobilization chief promised that the GRA would go steps further in consolidating and broadening the specialized knowledge of staff on tax to promote effective and efficient service delivery.
“The main objective of this training is to ensure that staff of the Authority involved in the administration of revenue have a better understanding of the laws they administer,” CG Darboe added.
He reemphasized the GRA’s commitment to building the capacity of more staff on revenue laws, stating that capacity building would remain the driving force for the diligent delivery of services by the Authority’s staff.
The commissioner general recognized and hailed as commendable the efforts of GRA’s Legal Department in training the staff of the Authority’s various units on revenue laws.
He prided that the GRA has many degree holders, who are willing to impart knowledge to staff, through in-housing training, adding the Authority will show no sign of slowing down in mobilizing revenue for staff training.
CG Darboe said the training on revenue laws sits well into the Authority’s Strategic Plan for 2020-2024.