Georgetown : After being warmly welcomed to the head office of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for a visit, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan said that as the main revenue earner for Guyana, he had to visit the organisation for a firsthand look at its operations and get to know the senior staff.
It was also an opportunity to have an “understanding of some of the challenges faced in collecting the state’s revenue,” he added.
Describing the GRA’s main office as “pretty organised” he noted that there may be a need for some tweaking “here and there”.
There may be some need for tax reform at the administrative levels, according to the minister because he said that he is worried at the rate in which they remit and the level of remittances, relative to the tax base. As an aside, Minister Jordan noted that he was familiar with quite a few of the staff at the GRA.
Describing himself as action oriented, the minister said that his visit was necessary before he presented his recommendations in the budget and shared it with the organisation’s senior staff.
In brief remarks, GRA head Khurshid Sattaur said he was very enthused with the visit, noting that, “He did give us some suggestions about things we can do to enhance our operations”.
He seconded the opinion expressed by Minister Jordan about the GRA’s operations and described the training sector as the best division. “We would like to have his involvement as much as possible in that regard in helping us to build our human resources, our capacity and our ability to do our work”.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan originally joined the Finance Ministry in 1985 as Budget Director and after resigning in 1994, was asked to return as a consultant where he worked until 2008. He was appointed to his current post on May 20.
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