PESHAWAR: To improve capacity of its staff in revenue forecasting, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) arranged a week-long training session for its collectorate officers in Islamabad.
USAID-funded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Mobilization Activity technically assisted the KPRA in conducting the week-long training session held at Avari Express hotel Islamabad in which 12 officers of KPRA Collectorate participated.
The aim of the workshop was to build capacity of KPRA staff in revenue forecasting for different sectors using data analysis for making informed decisions including target setting and changing tax rates.
“Sale Tax Collection is a complex task. We need to build capacity of our provincial revenue authorities to improve their projections, ” said
Prof. Dr. Zahid Asghar from the School of Economics Quaid-e-Azam University who was the main trainer in the workshop adding that they worked on how to improve their projections and revenue forecasting in different sectors on the bases of data analysis. “The training will help the KPRA officials to analyze data, efficiently communicate it with others, taking informed decisions and guiding their high-ups based on deep insight from data,” he said.
Former Director General KPRA Farida Amjad was the chief guest at the closing ceremony and he appreciated the interests shown by the KPRA Officers in the training. She lauded the KPRA’s management for becoming the first authority to train its staff in R Studio for revenue forecasting.
Director General KPRA Mr. Shahbaz Tahir Nadeem in the closing ceremony thanked USAID-KPRM for providing staff capacity building and organizational development support to KPRA. He said that forecasting is done on daily basis in business and in government they need to have forecasting based on scientific evidence. “We need to have an long term projections based on some scientific evidence for smooth functioning,” he said adding that KPRA is the first revenue authority to arrange training for its staff on R Studio and he told the participants to pass on their knowledge to the rest of the officers of KPRA in their internal training program.
He also added that “this training was much needed for improving revenue forecasting on the bases of data analysis at individual level for the officers and as a whole organization for KPRA. It will help us utilizing our data to do reliable projections,” he said. [Ends]
