A look at ATAF’s Technical Assistance in July

PRETORIA – The African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) continues to provide Technical Assistance (TA) to Members to help improve tax revenues. In the month of July, TA was provided to several ATAF Member countries.

Technical Assistance is at the core of what ATAF does to improve tax systems in Africa. In the month of July, at least seven countries joined the list of ATAF members which have benefitted from these programmes over the years.

CaseWare IDEA Training for Zimbabwe Revenue Authority

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority was the recipient of a training on the CaseWare IDEA tool; a computer-based file interrogation tool that is used by numerous individuals and organisations including auditors, accountants, investigators, and IT staff. The tool analyses data in different ways and allows for the extraction, sampling, and manipulation of data to identify errors, problems, specific issues, and trends. With IDEA, you can read, display, analyse, manipulate, sample, and extract data files from almost any source - mainframe to personal computer. IDEA has functions and features not found in any other product. Its features therefore help tax administrations work more efficiently and effectively, therefore adding greater value to the organization and its projects.

Among other takeaways, participants to the training acquired skills on: 

• Managing Databases
• Obtaining and Importing Data
• Reconciling and Examining Data
• Isolating Specific Records
• Profiling Data
• Identifying Irregularities
• Sampling Data.

The training was attended by approximately 20 participants who did the level 1 and level 2 training.

Data Literacy and Data Analytics in Tax Administration Training for Kenya Revenue Authority

An intensive Data Literacy and Data Analytics training was provided to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) for two weeks. The first week focused on training to provide officials with data literacy skills and the second week targeted officials who conduct data analysis within the tax administration. The training aimed to equip participants with skills in Data literacy, effective Data management, Data quality management, problem definition and analysis, data visualization and interpretation. These will in turn contribute to Improving compliance management for revenue growth.

These interventions have proven very beneficial to ATAF members as they contribute to strengthening their capacity to raise more revenues thus leading to better funding for government programmes and ultimately, to better living standards for more people on the continent.

Interested in receiving technical assistance?

For more information. contact Sameera Khan at skhan@ataftax.org.