By Omar Bah
Following criticism of the government’s decision to sign a duty stamp contract with Swiss company SICPA, the commissioner general of the Gambia Revenue Authority, Yankuba Darboe, told journalists yesterday that the criticism is not based on facts because those making it do not understand what the contract entails.
It is suggested that the contract will force businesses to increase the prices of soft drinks, water, and other breweries.
But reacting to the allegations, CG Darboe said the contract with SICPA is based on a public-private partnership, and it was an open tender through the Ministry of Finance, Office of the President, GPPA, and GRA.
He said those talking about the SICPA contract have “no idea what they are talking about.”
“In the contract, we have three reform components that they want to introduce in The Gambia. These reform components are working in other countries, and we believe they can work in The Gambia. We believe if we want development, these systems have to be put in place to bring about the needed changes,” he said.
He said the systems SICPA will introduce in the country include the tax stamp, which manufacturers and businesses dealing with excisable goods are required to put in their products so that GRA would be able to track products that are produced in the country and those that are not.
“It will also help us to be able to charge based on the amount they produce. This will ensure transparency and accountability,” he said.
He disclosed that the fees businesses bought the stamps with will be shared by the government and SICPA. “Gambega and GMC (the flour company) have already started using the stamp,” he said. He said before the introduction of the stamp, GRA was relying only on information provided to them by businesses producing excisable products in the country, and they paid based on the number of products they disclosed.
“So, we feel, for transparency purposes, we should have an arrangement like the one we have with SICPA to ensure we collect the right taxes from these businesses,” he said.
Fuel
He said the SICPA contract also covers fuel marking.
“All the fuel that comes into this country is dumped at the Mandinari depots, but the understanding we have is that there are some tankers that will come and stay at sea, and they will wait until night and use small vessels to distribute fuel to fuel stations. We cannot detect or verify these things, but with the SICPA fuel marking, if anything like that happens, we have testers that would be able to detect these abnormalities,” he said.
He said they are also working with SICPA to bring a fuel testing machine, which will be used by Pura to test all fuel products coming into the country.
“These are things happening in other countries, so we believe that we should have them here as well,” he said.
He said the SICPA contract also deals with revenue assurance when it comes to telecoms companies.
“The data and calls generated by these telecoms companies are in millions of dalasis, but no one is able to quantify the excise tax or VAT element, so we want to work with them to bring a system that Pura will use to make sure that the government is not losing any revenue,” he said.
“When it comes to resistance, the GRA is used, especially when we want to introduce new initiatives. What people should understand is that things cannot remain the same because if they do, we would not be able to collect the necessary taxes to develop this country.”
