By Maimuna Sey Jawo
The Commissioner General of the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) has challenged members of his staff who took part in a two weeks capacity building training to team-up and work for national development.
Yankuba Darboe said this is one way to ensuring government’s development aspirations are met, adding that the role his staff can play in shaping the Gambia’s future cannot be overemphasised.
He made this challenge at a Local Hotel in Senegambia as a two weeks training GRA’s Tax Auditors ended.
Mr Darboe illustrated gratitude to the consultants of the training, who he said are experts from Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leon for spending time in sharing knowledge with the GRA Auditors.
And Mr Darboe said that has “really impacted the participant’s knowledge” and will make GRA’s work easier.
“Sending this large number of people to another country to attend such training would have been a financial problem for the management,” Mr Darboe observed.
“My expectations are to ensure that whatever you learned here, you will share it with other GRA staff that are not lucky to be part of this training,” he told participants.
The Commissioner General commended the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for their continued support to the GRA, taking pride in the fact that already the GRA have staff that are in the list of IMF as expert trainers.
“I can tell you that we have very committed and hardworking staff in GRA. In fact IMF, World Bank and WHO have identify some of my staff to travel to be trainers in another country,” he said.
For his part, the Deputy Commissioner General Essa Jallow spoke at length on the significance of the training, urging the beneficiary staff to make best use of the training with a view to enabling them accomplish their development aspiration.
He said the training is the second of its kind as the first one was held in Liberia.
He enjoined the staff of the Tax Audit department to ensure that they disseminate the knowledge gained from the training to other staff in the department.
Speaking on behalf of the participants Famara K. Sanneh, senior tax officer for GRA Audit thanked the GRA management for organising such a “timely and important training for them.”
He said the training will go long in their quest for effective service delivery.
“We have learned a lot during the training period and the training have taken us to another level. Be rest assured that we will leave up to expectation in ensuring the objectives of the management of GRA is accomplished,” he promised.
