SENIOR officials of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) yesterday provided the media with a tour of its new headquarters in the former CLICO building on Camp Street in Georgetown, and it was disclosed that it now serves in excess of 2,000 customers daily.

Addressing the media before they were given a tour of the new location, which has approximately 700 staff members, GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur said that they are proud of what they have achieved, and this was done with the Guyanese public at heart.
“You would observe that everything is now happening at this location and quite apart from what it used to be, let’s say about six months ago, when you had to visit about five  different locations to have services rendered to you,” he pointed out.
He added that the type of systems they have in place at the new location indicates that they have done a lot of things to speed up the time it takes to do business at the agency.
This business, he noted, includes licence revenue, customs revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT), and income tax.

CONGESTION EXPECTED
Sattaur acknowledged that with the wide variety of activities being carried out at one location on a daily basis, it will be expected that there would be congestion, since there are several persons visiting the location, and on due dates three times as many persons would visit.
He dismissed the recent negative publicity that this move to the new headquarters has received, highlighting instead the hard work being done by the staff.
“Because, if they understand what it took for us to come here, from since October we’ve been trying very hard, everybody has been working round the clock to get here, no effort spared, then they would appreciate what it took for us to get here and they would understand what it meant to really to be here, one location,” he asserted.
He indicated that from the very beginning, some persons said that it would never happen, but they are proud to say that today they have the same level of business, and even more, conducted at the same location.
Sattaur acknowledged that while they have done a lot in terms of parking, in having a designated parking lot for the staff, there is still lots of work to be done.

SEEKING PARKING LOTS
He said that they are asking that persons who have empty lots in the area to make those lots available, probably at a cost, to the public.
Deputy Head of the Customs and Trade Administration, Ms. Karen Chapman, pointed out to the media that the ground floor of the new headquarters has two television monitors, one which reflects the current status of declarations that were lodged in the system, and the other which shows the current status of activities at the wharves.
She also pointed out that there’s a computer where persons can go to check the status of their declaration for themselves, by putting in their declaration number or their tax payer identification number.
In addition, staff members are also available to the customers who have queries to make, and these persons would assist them in any way that they can.

GRA WEBSITE
According to Ms. Chapman, they have systems in place where persons don’t even have to visit the headquarters to get the status, because the same information they are seeing there can be viewed online at the GRA website.
Senior Manager for Licence/Motor Vehicle Registration, Mr. Wayne Austin, explained to the media that persons must at first lodge the relevant documents, and for  drivers licenses, they are required to return in two working days, and in the case of renewing the license, they have to return in five days.
According to him, the system has been automated since the licenses are now printed and not handwritten, and they are asking persons to visit them at least two weeks before their licenses expire.
The security at this new location begins at the gate where persons have to go through a normal security check, and there is also internal security which ensures that order is maintained within the headquarters.
The departments housed in Camp Street are the Customs and Trade Administration, which was on Main Street; License and Revenue Division from Princes and Smyth Streets; the Value-Added Tax (VAT) and Income Tax Divisions from Charlotte and Albert Streets and General Post Office (GPO) Building respectively, and the Human Resources and Finance Division and the Secretariat from Lamaha Street.