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$480M later…GRA announces intentions for new headquarters at Liliendaal
Just three years after spending almost half a billion dollar to prepare a new headquarters on Camp Street, the country’s tax collection entity appears to be acknowledging it had blundered.
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) yesterday announced that it will be building a new headquarters at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
The ‘Request for Expression of Interest’, published in Stabroek News yesterday, indicated that GRA is looking for a consultant to provide building design services.
Among other things, the consultant will have to produce a design of the headquarters, along with the necessary electrical and air condition system and a priced Bill of Quantities.
The Expressions of Interest have to be delivered by November 13th and addressed to the Commissioner General of GRA.
The authorities moved into the Camp Street building on October 2012, spending around $480M to have it ready.
It was touted as a cost-cutting measure that brings GRA’s services in one place, rather than the different offices it had been operating from.
A bad move?
However, there had been concerns especially about the Camp Street location and the congestion.
The 200/201 Camp Street property was purchased by the now-bankrupt CLICO from the Guyana Sugar Corporation in 2005.
The property with a size of 36,863 square feet was valued between $1.7B and $1.8B by the valuator contracted by the insurance company, while the government valuator placed it at $1.316B, a difference of more than $400M.
It was subsequently acquired by the National Insurance Scheme which in turn rented it for several millions per month to GRA.
In December 2012, the previous Government disclosed that $480M was spent to refurbish the building with another $170M required.
However, the then opposition Parliamentary parties, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC), voted against the additional spending.
The money was spent on installing the Authority’s Information Technology, a supply of “clean power,” the installation of cubicles and telecommunication facilities, putting in place a fire escape, and other construction, such as a lunch room and filing rooms.
The new location had accommodated the Customs and Trade Administration, Licence Revenue Division, the Value Added Tax and Income Tax Divisions, the Human Resources and Finance Division and the GRA Secretariat.
GRA’s Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur had reportedly acknowledged that with the offering of all the services at one location there would be congestion, which is due to the agency’s employees totalling 700 and the number of people who approach it for services.
He noted that on a normal day the GRA is visited by over 2,000 people and that amount doubles when deadlines for tax submissions are close.
There have been concerns expressed recently about the safety of the GRA headquarters, with staffers complaining in the press
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