You will be expected to steer BURS to newer and greater heights - Mr. Wankie B. Wankie: Page 3 of 5

to provisions of confidentiality provided in the revenue laws; to ensure that information given does not disclose the identity of taxpayers that the Revenue Service deal with.

As part of good governance, the BURS Board adopted a Charter to regulate its business. The Charter was adopted in 2011. The Board also adopted Terms of Reference and Regulations for the different Board Committees. We also have, a Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest Policy, to promote the ability to make impartial and unfettered decisions.

To gauge our effectiveness, we have, as a Board, started to have self-assessments, every other year; to determine whether our mandate as a Board is being achieved, to identify gaps and close them. As a result of these self-assessment exercises, we have just concluded an exercise to review and revise the BURS Act.

Since the BURS Act was promulgated 12 years ago, it has not been amended to keep abreast with the general tone of new legislation establishing Parastatals. As such, some areas of the Act were found not to be adequate to serve as a vehicle for improving the general administration and enforcement of laws by BURS.

The proposals for amendment have been forwarded to the Ministry of Finance to give instructions to the office of the Attorney General to draft a Bill for the amendment of the BURS Act. Some of the proposed amendments are to:

Increase membership and skills in the BURS Board;
To increase representation from the private sector;
To cap the tenure of Board membership and promote independence of members; and
To allow for more participation at committee levels to assist in the execution of Board responsibilities.

We just recently, in June, concluded another self-assessment exercise, the report of which will be shared with all Board and Board Committee members. Some of the issues that emerged from the exercise relate to the need to have a Code of Ethics and whether or not we need to have a signed Charter. Another issue that arose was whether