07 Dec 2015

Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) places employee training and development amongst its top priorities.

In this regard, in its third strategic plan covering the period 2014 to 2019, BURS has adopted a personnel philosophy that priorities on staff, says BURS commissioner general, Mr Ken Morris.

Mr Morris said this at the graduation ceremony of the 3rd intake of graduate training programme which was held recently at Cresta Hotel.

He said the plan articulated in its strategic essence that BURS would focus on the development of people, culture, processes and technology systems to make quantum leaps in customer service and effectiveness.

“The recent board approved the so called tilt in the strategic plan placed the development of our people at the top of our strategic agenda and at the core of our strategic essence statement.

This adjustment to our contract is further being operationalised in the second stage of our transformation agenda, the initiative dubbed ‘Re aga lelwapa le,” he noted.

He said “Re aga lelwapa le,” was set to establish and deploy a BURS standard for operational excellence, adding that the GTP programme which predates the particular adjustments was a good example of the kind of investments in people that they have been making and which would be seen more in future.

“In this regard, our financial records indicate that from 2013/14 financial year to the current financial year 2015/16, our budget towards training and development has grown exponentially from P4.6 million to P7.1 million signifying an increase of 54 per cent.

The resources allocated to training account for a significant proportion of BURS operational expenses. This signifies BURS resolve and intent to develop its staff because we are alive to the fact that without them BURS would not exist and effectively discharge its mandate as entrusted by the government and people of our beloved Republic,” he said.

He said GTP was launched in 2011 as a 12 month intensive training course which was intended to expose university graduates on the BURS business.

“The overall goal of the graduate trainee programme is to produce well-rounded tax officials knowledgeable in income tax, value added tax, customs as well as excise taxation, who could be relied upon to fully discharge the BURS revenue mobilisation mandate, professionally,” he said.

Mr Morris said during the 12 month training course participants were exposed to theoretical and practical aspects of customs and taxation work complemented by case studies that relive real life tax compliance situations,” he indicated.

He alluded that it was critical to note that when the GTP was conceived, local tertiary institutions did not produce tax and customs professionals who could upon joining the newly established BURS perform adequately.

He said against this background the top most priority for BURS was to develop, as a matter of urgency, its human resource capital to be able to match the taxation and customs skills of taxpayers.

“We are proud of the GTP track record because since its inception four years ago we have enrolled three classes already which have produced no less than 106 BURS graduates all of who are deployed at various BURS offices nationally. The group that you are here to witness graduate tonight is the third intake.

The next intake is expected late in 2016 as we have decided to use the intervening period to review the programme to make it even more relevant to our needs and who knows, after the review we may even allow in the next intake private candidates,” he said.  

He noted that there were numerous challenges which awaited graduates, adding that he was confident that the knowledge, insights and exploits that the graduates have learnt through the programme would be fully employed to confront any tax administration challenges. ENDS