Following the Mercator Implementation plan for Sierra Leone, and with generous funding from the Government of the United Kingdom through Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the WCO successfully delivered a Leadership Management Development (LMD) workshop for the National Revenue Authority (NRA). The workshop provided an opportunity for the NRA to strengthen its leadership management skills with the aim of “creating opportunities for staff to enable them to achieve full potential” which is one of the core values for the Administration.
This workshop took place in Freetown from 6 to 17 November 2017. It was a part of the HMRC-WCO-UNCTAD Programme, a partnership between HMRC, the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The programme aims at supporting developing countries to effectively implement the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) under the auspices of the WCO Mercator Programme.
The LMD workshop brought together sixteen NRA senior managers from various departments (Customs, Domestic Taxes, HR, ICT, Corporates services and Monitoring and Planning) who were continuously challenged to assess their own leadership and management perspectives in various fields including Change Management, Strategic Management and People Management. Participants were able to increase awareness of their qualities, beliefs, and values as well as improving their capacities to influence others with the ultimate aim of building the team spirit required to drive the Administration’s modernization and reform agenda and to improve its organizational performance.
As one of the participants, who was new to this approach, expressed it: “it was hard at first, then it was easy and ultimately the facilitators made it practical and enjoyable”. By the end of the second week the participants were opening up. They also made personal commitments on how they will apply their newly acquired skills, to keep self-reflecting and stay open for personal growth. In the closing ceremony, the Commissioner General of NRA, Mrs. Haja Kallah-Kamara, highlighted that the workshop had provided a good foundation for the NRA on which to build a strong leadership base that will help the organization to effectively adapt to global requirements and manage future challenges.