Bangkok, Thailand, October 19, 2026 Sierra Leone has stepped up its push for continued technical assistance from the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) to strengthen tax administration, improve compliance risk management and rebuild public trust in the National Revenue Authority (NRA). The request was made during a meeting on the sidelines of the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, where Senior Director of Research at the Ministry of Finance, Dr Phillip Kargbo, met officials of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department. The NRA delegation was led by Commissioner-General Abu Kanneh, with other commissioners joining Ministry of Finance officials to discuss priority areas for future IMF support. The 2026 Annual Meetings are being held in Bangkok from October 12 to 18. Dr Kargbo said Sierra Leone valued the Fund’s long-standing assistance to the NRA, particularly support for audit processes, taxpayer assessment and follow-up technical work that helped shape the authority’s reform agenda. He noted that those engagements had fed into a revised NRA strategic plan covering 2023 to 2027, which was recently approved by the authority’s board after a midterm review conducted with IMF support. “We have outlined our reform priorities in a revised strategic plan, and the board has approved it,” Dr Kargbo said. “What we are now trying to find are ways of implementing those reforms, and we look to the Fiscal Affairs Department for continued support.”
He said the NRA was seeking assistance in several interconnected areas, including compliance risk management, enterprise risk management, business continuity planning, data management and organizational strengthening. According to Dr Kargbo, the authority had already begun reorganizing some units and requested staff allocations to support the implementation of recommendations from earlier IMF missions. “Compliance risk management is very important for us, but we also want to extend the work to enterprise risk management,” he said. “We want support for business continuity planning, and we also need a data management strategy that addresses governance, user access and how data is used across the institution.” Dr Kargbo stressed that data would be central to the next phase of tax administration reform. He said the NRA had drafted a data management strategy but required IMF quality assurance and technical guidance to ensure that the framework could support decision-making, compliance monitoring and better coordination across departments.
“Data management is very critical for an administration these days,” he said. “We need a data warehouse and systems in place, but we also need a strategy on the governance of data how it is accessed, who uses it and how it informs decisions.” The meeting also addressed governance and integrity within tax administration. Dr Kargbo said the NRA wanted an integrity assessment to help strengthen internal controls, improve institutional confidence and reassure taxpayers that the authority was operating transparently. “Trust is very important for taxpayers to have confidence in paying their taxes,” he said. “We want an integrity and governance assessment that will help us build confidence in the public that we are doing something.” In response, IMF officials welcomed the NRA’s priorities and said the Fund would work with Sierra Leone to sequence the requested support, given limited resources and the need to align assistance with the country’s reform timetable.
They indicated that some work could be delivered remotely from IMF headquarters, while other areas, including enterprise risk management and business continuity, may require specialized expertise or field missions. The IMF officials also said the requests should be integrated into the NRA’s broader revenue administration strategy, with compliance risk management, data governance and institutional integrity treated as part of one reform programme rather than separate initiatives. The discussions come as fiscal pressures mount globally. The IMF’s October 2026 Fiscal Monitor, launched during the Bangkok meetings under the theme “Taxing Better to Boost Growth,” underscores the importance of stronger revenue administration and fiscal institutions in supporting growth and debt sustainability. For Sierra Leone, the meeting signalled a determination to move from planning to implementation: strengthening the NRA’s capacity to collect revenue efficiently, manage risk, protect data and earn greater public confidence in the tax system.
