–despite training, salary increases

COMMISSIONER General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Godfrey Statia, on Monday, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the authority’s Petroleum Revenue Department remains deficient owing to a shortage of staff.

Statia made this revelation as the PAC examined the Auditor General’s report of 2019 for the agency.
During the meeting, he also said that a large number of the trained staff are being “snapped up” by oil and gas companies here.
As the report was being examined, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill questioned whether there is currently a full complement of staff for this department, as the 2019 report states that at that time there were only 15 persons who were part of the team.

While Statia noted that they do not have the full staff complement, he said that they are working to get the full complement of staff, even as he mentioned that they have increased salaries for persons in the department in a bid to retain staff.

“But what we have seen is that as we train staff, we lose staff; we have actually lost about five staff that we would have trained within the past year… yes, to the oil industry,” the Commissioner General said, adding that the current staff complement stands at some 31, while 65 is required.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the PAC, Jermaine Figueira asked Statia about the system that is in place to ensure that when they invest in training for the staff that they remain on the job, for example through the use of contracts.

However, the Commissioner General said that they try to appeal to the “patriotism” of staff in an attempt to keep them on the job.
Against this backdrop, he went on to add that he believes that GRA offers the best pay and working conditions when compared to other public service agencies.
As it relates to having trained staff sign contracts to remain on the job, Statia told the PAC that they try to avoid taking this avenue.

“I am of the opinion that you have to love your work and you have to love what you do, and that’s one of the reasons why you should be at the GRA,” Statia said.