The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has extended felicitations to St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Jamaica for emerging the top three winners in the Third Caribbean Organisation of Tax Administration (COTA) Essay competition.
In a press release, the GRA said the Caribbean Community announced the winners from the said countries as Trevaun Williams, Tenille Graham and Melissa Douglas, respectively.
Although Guyana’s entrants did not place among the top three, GRA Commissioner-General Khurshid Sattaur and the agency’s management and staff urged them to maintain the high standard and dedication they had shown in the various entries.
In the local segment of the competition which was opened to secondary school students ages 13-15, twelve participants from Queen’s College (QC), Bladen Hall Multilateral, Rosignol Secondary, the Bishops’ High and Berbice High School submitted entries.
QC’s Nyana Evans placed first, followed by Hema Ramdass of Berbice High, second and Kenny Bisnauth, also QC, third. The other local participants were Celisia DeFlorimonte, Dorielle Retemyer, Deon Allen, Mahendra Phagway, Nigel McPherson, Amella Shaw, Uvannie Roopram, Ryan Jagnarine and Anjelie Karamchand.
According to the GRA, the competition aimed “to stimulate interest in taxation matters and to encourage youth within the Caribbean Community (Caricom) to become knowledgeable about tax administration.”
This year’s topic was “The tax administration plays a critical role in my country’s development. How can I use Information and Communication Technology to enhance my country’s tax administration’s capabilities so as to generate greater resources for national development?”
The Caricom Secretariat said the essays were evaluated by an independent evaluator selected by the Executive Council of COTA, who noted that “the essays showed evidence of being well researched by the participants. Moreover participants showed reasonable knowledge of the tax systems and challenges in their countries and the Caribbean Community, generally.”
Further, it was recommended that the competition should be continued as an excellent way of educating youths about the tax systems both domestically and regionally and could ultimately lead to improved tax compliance rates overtime. The contest was launched on March 2 with the GRA coordinating the local leg of the competition.
