By Abdoulie Nyockeh

Copyright thepoint

In his official opening speech, Commissioner General Yankuba Darboe hailed the participants for responding positively to what he described as “very important sensitization” for representatives of construction companies and consulting firms across the country on the upcoming ITAS system.

CG Darboe dilated on the significance of the new technology, saying it is very beneficial and cost effective as far as revenue collection is concerned.

According to him, this project cannot be implemented successfully without the involvement of taxpayers whom he described as very central in this project. “We therefore value you and have high respect for your existence and support toward the implementation of this project.”

He acknowledged that it is always difficult for people to embrace new initiatives and technology, but assured that “this ITAS system is one of the most important reforms.” He explained that the ITAS system is easy to use at one’s comfort zone by filing instead of going to the old manual days. “We are trying to do away with manual way of doing things to ensure efficiency and transparency in the collection of revenue and to better close all leakages especially at our cross borders.”

He recalled that previously there were so many smugglings but with some of the latest reform undertaken by GRA, those leakages are becoming a thing of the past.

CG also dilated on the significance of GRA migrating from manual to digital revenue collection, saying it has helped the management of GRA a lot in revenue mobilisation over the years. He told the participants due to the latest digitalisation transformation, GRA is now collecting billions in a month. He cited that this needs serious minded human resource personnel who are level-headed to collect such a huge amount on a monthly basis.

According to CG Darboe, GRA could not successfully collect such without the political will of the government. He therefore praised the government under H.E. Adama Barrow and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs as well as the main sponsors of the project World Bank for the support.

He further challenged the participants to always embrace new reforms by GRA, saying they are always beneficial to the development of The Gambia. He hinted that The Gambia would soon be a hub of learning best practices for other countries, while recalling that a few months back, a high-powered delegation from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal came to learn from the Gambia. “This is a plus for The Gambia. “Therefore let us embrace new technology as the ITAS system is here to stay.”

He made it clear to the participants that no country would come and develop this country for us. “We need to work together and make life easy for each to better develop The Gambia. This is a tax-based country. Whoever is engaged in economic gain, you need to pay your quota toward national development.