He described the noise, criticism and allegations made by the people as “baseless and unfounded” since they did not understand what the contract entailed.
He said the people making noise, criticism and allegations are baseless and untrue because they did not understand what was contained in the contract.
“SICPA came in because we had a partnership with them in terms of PPP and the PPP arrangement was an open tender through the Ministry of Finance. I heard some people talking about SICPA, but they have no idea about how the system came into here. They have no idea and they are just talking. This was an open tender conducted by the Ministry of Finance as a head and other ministries including GRA, the Gambia Ports Authority, the President’s Office, and GPPA,” he said.
Mr. Darboe made these remarks on Wednesday, 3rd April 2024 during a press briefing held at the Gambia Revenue Authority hall.
He said such reforms are happening in other countries and asked why it cannot happen in the Gambia.
“We believe that if we want development, this system has to stay and it will bring a lot of change,” he remarked.
CG Darboe outlined that SICPA’s contract deals with revenue assurance when it comes to telecom companies.
He said the number of data and calls generated by these telecom companies are in millions of dalasi, and no one can quantify its excise tax or VAT element.
“Therefore, we want to work with SICPA to bring a system that PURA can use to make sure that the government is not losing any revenue,” he concluded.
