The forum, which was held at the Senegambia Beach Hotel was meant to orient heads of department from both Customs and Domestic Taxes on their roles and responsibilities with a view to improving effective service delivery.
Speaking at the forum, the Director of Human Resources of the GRA, Ernest Mendy, spoke at length on the significance of the forum, saying; “the purpose of this orientation is to bring heads of offices of GRA across the country, with a view to update them on their roles and responsibilities regarding their work at their respective offices.”
He added: “We also want to inform them about the unprecedented development going on at GRA. The forum will also avail the participants the opportunity to highlight some of their challenges, concerns as well as recommendations in order for the GRA management to look into them and address some of the key issues,” he said, adding “we also want to update the participants on some of the developments that are happening at the Authority.”
The participants, Ernest explained, will be taken through the Human Resources Policy of GRA and the authority’s procedures in terms of the recruitment policy, promotion policy, and the award and benefit framework.
The GRA Human Resources director further added: “These are documents that we can learn from and improve. Some of you the participants are managers and some of you are senior officers at the level of your respective branches and borders. Therefore, it is important to expose you more on your roles and responsibilities so that we can have effective service delivery which has been the heartbeat of the GRA management.”
The orientation, he went on, was to remind the participants about their roles and responsibilities as managers and also to help them to better understand the policy and procedures that are in place at the GRA.
The role of his department, he said, is to coordinate human resources function especially on issues of recruitment, training and development as well as managing the staff among other issues.
“At the level of GRA, we have the service rule. These give condition for service for staff so that they will know what is there for them. We also have the code of conduct which is the rule and regulation that every staff is expected to follow. In essence, the role of the Human Resources Department is to help every staff to feel at home while in work in terms of motivation and also commitment in doing your work.”
Yankuba Darboe, the commissioner general of GRA, thanked the Department of Human Resources for ensuring that the orientation becomes a reality, while emphasising importance of capacity building.
He added: “I can tell you that the importance of this orientation for these senior managers of GRA cannot be over emphasised as it will greatly help them to better manage their junior staff at their office levels. Therefore, I want you to adhere to the human resources policy of the authority.”
