The Gambia Revenue Authority and the Liberia Revenue Authority have signed a Memorandum of Engagement to deepen technical cooperation on digital revenue administration, a deal sealed on the sidelines of the 8th West African Tax Administration Forum High-Level Policy Dialogue in Accra.
Commissioner General Yankuba Darboe of the GRA and Liberia’s Commissioner General and Chief Executive Officer James Dorbor Jallah signed the agreement, which commits the LRA to help the GRA design, develop and implement a working Revenue Collection Dashboard prototype.
The partnership is framed as South-South cooperation. Liberia will provide targeted technical assistance, including an assessment of GRA’s existing revenue data systems, identification of key performance indicators, advice on dashboard architecture and data structures, development of an operational prototype, options for systems integration and automation, and training for GRA staff.
The idea began informally. During a dinner at the WATAF meetings, the Liberian delegation demonstrated the dashboard the LRA already uses. The tool consolidates revenue information and lets officials monitor collection performance on a single screen. Impressed by its potential for The Gambia’s digitalization program, Darboe asked Jallah for help. The request was accepted immediately and later formalized in official correspondence and a signed memorandum.
Under the deal, the LRA will send Jupar Dunbar, Assistant Commissioner for Enterprise Data Analytics, to The Gambia for an initial three-week assignment. Dunbar was the principal developer of Liberia’s own dashboard. His task is practical: transfer institutional knowledge and help GRA build a prototype fitted to Gambian systems rather than deliver abstract advice.
Knowledge transfer is central. GRA staff will be trained to maintain, develop, and use the dashboard after the expert leaves.
At the signing, Darboe thanked Jallah for the speed of the response. He noted that Liberia not only agreed to send an expert but volunteered to pay the return airfare between Monrovia and Banjul. GRA will cover accommodation, local transport, subsistence and other logistics.
Darboe called the arrangement the kind of African peer learning he has long promoted. Tax administrations across the continent face similar problems, he said, and many workable answers are already being built in Africa. Sharing expertise, technology and lessons is cheaper and faster than every country inventing the same tools alone.
“Where one administration develops an effective digital solution, others should have the opportunity to learn from it. Where specialized expertise exists in one country, we should find ways of making that expertise available to others.”
Such cooperation, he added, can cut reform costs, speed modernization and produce systems that fit African operating conditions. South-South work, he argued, must move from conference statements to concrete exchanges between institutions.
For GRA, the dashboard is expected to improve how managers gather, display and use revenue data. The mission will review current data sources, set performance indicators and look for ways to integrate systems and automate workflows.
The episode also shows how regional forums such as WATAF can turn policy dialogue into lasting institutional collaboration between neighboring tax authorities.
