WATAF facilitates LRA and STA’s benchmarking visit to FIRS

From October 24 to 26, 2023, in Abuja, Nigeria, a delegation from the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) and the Swedish Tax Agency (STA) embarked on a transformative benchmarking mission to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria. The West African Tax Administration Forum (WATAF) facilitated the mission, which sought to identify the strategies used by the FIRS to implement cutting-edge and effective human resources practices and processes.

The visit is part of a three-year capacity development cooperation project between the LRA and the STA. The two institutions had a clear objective in mind before undertaking the visit: to closely examine FIRS’ strategies for talent acquisition, leadership and staff development, training programmes, employee engagement initiatives, and effective performance management systems. To achieve this goal, their journey was marked by visits to key FIRS offices, each chosen to provide unique insights.

These visits included the Human Capital Management Department, the Career and Skills Development Department, the Micro and Small Tax Office, and the State Coordination Office. Each visit provided an opportunity to identify areas of common interest among the institutions and foster knowledge exchange.

The LRA and STA expressed a strong desire to engage in a partnership with FIRS, with a particular focus on leadership training and providing technical assistance for modernising HR processes. The visiting team commended WATAF for their role in making this initiative possible, citing challenges they faced in previous efforts to collaborate with other tax administrations within Africa. They emphasised that the trip was “money well spent,” indicating that the knowledge and insights they acquired from FIRS were highly valuable and would have a significant impact on their respective tax administrations.

This mission served as a testament to WATAF’s commitment to advancing the field of tax administration in West Africa through capacity development programmes and technical assistance.