MONROVIA – Commissioner General Thomas Doe Nah of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), has lauded the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) for its technical assistance provided to boost the human resource capacity of the authority.
The CG appreciated “the gesture and partnership of ATAF in strengthening [the LRA’s] capacity” in generating more revenues for the development of Liberia, adding that the Authority looks forward to more of these capacity-building opportunities in moving to the billions in revenue growth.
The Commissioner General spoke Friday in Paynesville at the close of a weeklong intensive capacity-building training that focused on expanding the LRA Transfer Pricing program to the telecommunication sector.
He urged LRA staff who benefitted from the training to apply the acquired knowledge to make the system more vibrant for revenue generation.
The head of the ATAF delegation Moses Chamisa appreciated LRA for the high level of support and reception during the week-long technical training.
“There is a great need for LRA to have more Data analytics training because the technical sector is growing faster. Therefore, we need to extend this training and we at ATAF are prepared to work with LRA based on your interest,” he said.
Chamisa described the week-long training as the beginning of a good relationship between LRA and ATAF and expressed willingness to provide continued assistance to the LRA.
The training is in line with the second phase of the Tax Inspectors Without Border (TIWB) capacity-building program to bolster the domestic resource mobilization capacity of Liberia, which CG Nah launched on January 30 this year.
Partnering with the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) for this new program, TIWB is a joint initiative of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched in 2015 to strengthen developing countries’ auditing capacity and multinationals’ compliance worldwide.
With the help of TIWB, the LRA was able to commence eight audits of Multinational Enterprises. Seven of these audits were completed from 2016 to 2022, enabling the LRA to discover and recover the amount of US$16.54 million in taxes.
The just-ended training will help the LRA continue on a similar path with an emphasis in the telecommunication sector.
