Under the agreement, the bank would now collect non-tax revenue on behalf of the government. However, the initiative is part of the government’s broader pursuit to digitize the whole system and discourage the handling of physical cash by officials.
At the signing ceremony, Agnes Macaulay, Accountant General of The Gambia, while describing the initiative as a big milestone, equally acknowledged the efforts that has been put in making the signing a reality.
She recalled it has not been an easy journey as it started a long time but thank God they have signed the agreement.
“This is a very big milestone as far as the partnership is concerned,” she said. “The work started a long time even though we would have loved it to be done earlier than now, but it’s better late than never.”
To this end, the AG expressed optimism that the move would further strengthen the already existing partnership with the bank, while opening new avenues as the intention of government is to bring everybody on the payment platform.
“This means we want to digitize the system such that we do not need to put government officials in places of handling cash. It is not our business to handle the cash and we want to leave it with the banks to handle it.”
She hinted that in the long run all Ministries, Departments and Agencies including autonomous bodies as well as any service under the government, will be brought onboard the platform.
The AG also spoke about their intention to include GRA collection (tax revenue), but are still unravelling some issues to reach a solution to it.
In this vein, she expressed appreciation for the great service of the bank, for being one of the leading banks in the country, saying: “It’s good to be one of the first, so that when others are trying to crawl to catch up, you are already there.
“So I want to applaud your effort and also that of my team for this achievement.”
She also spoke of their resolve to create a level playing field where everyone will ride on smoothly, saying: “Now how they perform on the payment plan depends on their clientele or what they can do to improve their services.”
She reiterated their resolve to continue the partnership to improve customer service, further calling on bank’s officials to be accommodating and innovative to attract more customers.
For his part, Stephen Abban, Managing Director of Access Bank Gambia, said the event was a landmark and a major achievement in view of the fact that every government needs revenue.
The initiative would help address some of the leakages and loopholes in revenue mobilization, while improving the revenue flow, he said: “I am very happy to be part of this initiative.”
The Access Bank MD expressed his readiness to improve on their services as they’ve already started a lot of the background work to ensure they minimize the inconveniences some customers go through.
This would help facilitate easy access to quality and hassle-free services, he added.
Mr Abban congratulated the technical team of the Department for their effort, saying as a bank they devotedly looked up to a well planned and secure process of the initiative in order to take up the mantle of serving the interest of all.
“I will continue to provide suggestions and recommendations that would be necessary for us to improve on what we have done so far,” he assured. “So I want to say a big thank you and we are not ending here as this is just the beginning.”
He added that they would continue to leverage on their local expertise as well as group expertise, pointing out that in the 17 countries they are operating they are leaders when it comes to revenue collection.
Momodu Salifu Jatta, deputy Accountant General, ICT, Saikou Keita, senior accountant and IFMIS Application Team Leader, and Fatou Tall, head of public sector at Access Bank, all made vital contributions on the way forward and how to foster customer-friendly services.
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