Three appointments have been effected at the top echelon of the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) effective Thursday, 19th July, 2012, the Daily Observer has reliably gathered.

Ansumana Trawally, formerly the commissioner of Customs, has now taken the baton as the new commissioner general, whilst Yankuba Darboe, previously manager of Seaports Operations has been appointed deputy commissioner general and head of Customs. Meanwhile, Essa Jallow, who until this latest development was the director of Technical Services at the GRA, has been named commissioner of Domestic Taxß.

These appointments at the nation’s revenue collecting body are coming in the wake of the indictment of the predecessors of the new appointees by the TaxCommission, which findings exposed grave irregularities in tax administration and revenue collection; something that led to the loss of more than D2 billion in government revenue.

When contacted, the new commissioner general, Trawally confirmed his appointment. He said: “I thank the president [for this appointment] and I promise to make revenue of difference with my team.”

Also reacting, Deputy Commissioner General Darboe, a holder of BA in Economics, University of The Gambia,MBA in Finance at the University of Webster in the States, Certificate in Revenue Forecasting and Taxation atthe DukeUniversity in the States and Certificatein Valuation and Administrationa fellowshipunder the auspicies of the World Customs Organisation in Belgium, described the appointment as “great”.

“I want to thank Allah for the appointment and the president for the trust that he bestowed on to this high position of responsibility in the administration of taxes in the country,” the commissioner of Domestic Tax, Essa Jallow said when contacted for confirmation.

Jallow, who joined the GRA in 2007 after obtaining a Masters Degree in Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, promised to do his utmost best as a citizen to contribute his quota to national development.

“I also want to seize this opportunity to appeal to all Gambian taxpayers to pay their tax in order to make my job easy. I will use my office to provide all the necessary services for Gambian taxpayers so as to facilitate their compliance,” the Kuntair-born economist concluded.