Zambia, Gambia seek enhanced tech to seal revenue leakages

ZAMBIA and Gambia have stepped up their efforts to seal all revenue leakages using technology, while collecting adequate resources needed to develop the two countries.

The two countries believe that enhanced use of technology can mitigate revenue leakages which have affected the resource envelopes.

The two parties, therefore, yesterday in Lusaka signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to exchange of information and best practices on tax administration, trade facilitation, modernisation and other specific areas of expertise.

This was done through the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA)

At the signing ceremony, the ZRA Commissioner-General, Mr Dingani Banda, noted the need to leverage on technology in tax administration to mitigate revenue leakages.

“We need to believe that we can provide solutions to our problems and fortunately we are living in a time where technology is available to us, the same technology that is available in developed countries

“There is now a huge opportunity for us to leverage on the knowledge in terms of skills that the market provides, the technology available to us and develop solutions that will address our problems,” Mr Banda said.

On the MoU, Mr Banda said it is the manifestation of the South to South cooperation for enhanced domestic revenue collection as the anchor for development and poverty alleviation on the African continent.

Earlier, GRA Commissioner-General, Yankuba Darboe, African countries were at a level where they need to work hard in terms of mobilising the needed revenue for their governments.

Mr Darboe was confident that enhanced revenue collection will assist African countries not to rely on external sources to have revenue for development for their countries.