In bid to enhance sharing of knowledge and best practice among revenue administrations in
The body organises quarterly meetings, which is hosted by different founding member countries.
The 3rd forum this year is being hosted by Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) with the theme: “Sharing experiences in best practices in Tax Administration”.
The forum brought together delegates form ECOWAS member countries and
Speaking at the opening ceremony, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Mod K. Ceesay, said the West African Tax Administration Forum is part of the African Tax Administration Forum, which was formally launched in
He said the latter’s aim is to enable African tax administration assist each other to build capacity, share best practices, as well as exchange relevant information in order to strengthen the mobilization of domestic revenue and significantly minimize dependency on external budgetary support to fund government’s development programmes.
DPS Ceesay said that this is a historic moments as it is the first time The Gambia is hosting such an eminent group of experts to discuss important common tax issues of the sub-region.
According to him, perhaps most importantly is the fact that this meeting is also happening at a time when the Gambia Revenue Authority is challenged with not only urgent issues of reforms to increase tax compliance and broaden the tax base but also to successfully introduce the much anticipated VAT in January 2013.
DPS Ceesay finally called on other revenue administration within the sub-region to embrace the forum as it will enable them to harmonize important domestic tax issues with the ECOWAS protocols and objectives relating to international trade.
For his part, the Commissioner General of GRA, Bakary Sanyang, told the gathering that “the Government of The Gambia has realised the inextricable link between taxation and development resulted in the introduction of series of tax reforms since the beginning of this decade.
He noted that these tax reforms led to the creation of the Gambia Revenue Authority which brought the main revenue collecting agencies of domestic taxes and customs under one roof.
He said: “Considering the fact that The Gambia is not endowed with natural resources, the mobilization of domestic resources to finance development programs and project will to a large extent depend on a sound and capable tax administration.”
According to Sanyang, they are embarking on a major tax reform aiming at introducing VAT to replace the existing sales tax at the beginning of next year.
CG Sanyang appealed to ECOWAS to support this process as they cannot achieve their objectives in the sub-region if tax issues are not prioritized by them.
Other speakers included Rene Geoffrey Renner, Chairman of the GRA and Salifu Tiemtone, ECOWAS representative at the forum.
