Sierra Leone News: WAIFEM trains 30 NRA Staff

The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) has commenced a weeklong training programme on report writing skills and presentation techniques for 30 NRA staff.
A statement by the Director General of WAIFEM, Prof. Akpan H. Ekpo expressed gratitude to the Management of the NRA for the opportunity given to WAIFEM to facilitate what is described as an important capacity building programme.

Speaking at the opening ceremony on Monday, 23rd November, a representative from WAIFEM, Mr. Ousman Sowe said the institute was established in July 1996 by the central banks of The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone to mainly strengthen capacity on a sustainable basis for macroeconomic, debt and financial sector management in the countries of member banks. He added that since its establishment, the institute has executed more than 532 training and capacity building programmes through national and regional courses, workshops, executive fora and seminars for over 14,000 executive, senior and middle level officials from countries of member banks as well as other francophone West Africa, Eastern, Northern and Southern African countries.

Mr Sowe further explained that in order to ensure the highest quality in its programs, WAIFEM has extensive technical partnerships with reputable institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat as well as universities and relevant capacity building institutions in the sub-region.
Speaking on the relevance of report writing and presentation skills to corporate bodies and institutions, the WAIFEM representative said modern business organizations now require constant and large amount of internal and external communication, adding that those vested with the responsibility of these roles must master the process of communication to enhance their job effectiveness.
He said the weeklong course is organized to empower participants with cutting-edge communication competences which will enable them use communication as a powerful tool for job effectiveness particularly in writing and presenting high quality economic, financial and other reports.

The Chairman, NRA Board of Directors, Sulaiman Kabba-Koroma Esq said that due to the strategic role the NRA plays in the economic and financial management of the country and in particular the dissemination of information regarding economic progress, it is imperative that information be expressed in a clear, unambiguous and objective manner.
He said NRA recognizes human capital investment as the centre-piece of organizational growth so as to realize its national mandate of revenue collection. Indeed, human development and capacity building form the basis of NRA’s five-year strategic plan (2013-2017). Mr Kabba-Koroma stated that the NRA has upheld commitments to develop the skill levels and competencies of its workforce in a non-discriminatory manner.

From January to October 2015 alone he said, the Authority has trained 453 out of its 508 staff, representing 89% of staff having benefitted from its human capital investment policy. He added that out of the 453 staff that have benefitted from various training programmes, 391 are from local in-house courses while 62 from international training programmes. He said by the end of the current WAIFEM training programme, the NRA would have surpassed the 95% mark of staff training and development which he described as a remarkable achievement and congratulated the Commissioner-General of the NRA for her outstanding leadership, while urging participants to take advantage of the training programme to build on their knowledge and experience.