Chinamasa best CEO
THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) commissioner general Regina Chinamasa (pictured) won the Best CEO of the Year Award at the recently held 2024 Director of the Year Awards in Harare.
The award ceremony is an annual event held by the Institute of Directors Zimbabwe (IODZ), a leading professional body in the country which has a mandate to support good corporate practices in businesses and among the people who run them.
Chinamasa first began serving in the role of commissioner general, in an acting capacity, on February 1, 2022, following the retirement from the position by Rameck Masaire at the end of the prior month. By September 1, that same year, Chinamasa was made the substantive commissioner general after exhibiting exemplary work running the authority. Before her appointment as Zimra's acting commissioner general, Chinamasa was the substantive commissioner of Revenue Assurance.
“The year 2023 marked the mid-point in the implementation of Zimra`s 2021 – 2025 Strategy,” Chinamasa said, at Zimra’s annual general meeting held last month in Harare.
“The five-year strategy which is being implemented using the Integrated Results Based Management system, focuses on the attainment of four key strategic outcomes, namely to Maximise Revenue Collection, Increase Voluntary Compliance, Enhance Trade Facilitation and Protection of Civil Society; and Strengthen Institutional Image.”
She added: “Through the above, I am pleased to advise that the Authority has made substantial progress in supporting Government`s efforts to sustain Domestic Resource Mobilisation towards the attainment of the National Development Strategy (NDS -1) goals.”
However, the primary strategic outcome which seeks to maximise revenue collection, marginally missed the revised revenue target despite concerted efforts.
“The suboptimal performance is largely attributed to the decline in manufacturing sector capacity utilisation and the informalisation of the economy characterised by high volumes of trade conducted outside traceable formal payment systems which made tax and duty collection challenging,” Chinamasa said.
The authority managed to collect a net revenue of ZW$19,35 trillion ( US$3,16 billion) against a target of ZW$22,3 trillion (US$3,81 billion) resulting in a negative variance of 13,22%. Net revenue grew by 855,45% in nominal terms and 1,46% after adjusting for inflation.
“Zimra remains committed to supporting national development initiatives through revenue mobilisation. The Authority remains flexible and responsive to policy changes introduced to grow the economy,” Chinamasa said, in an outlook statement for the year.
“As digital technology continues to be rolled out, the organisation is confident that internal processes will be seamless and service provision will improve significantly in the near future. Service delivery remains a priority area and focus is on improving the customer experience through Tax Payer Education, a responsive Contact Centre, integration and digitalisation of systems.”
She said minimising revenue leakages was essential in ensuring domestic resource mobilisation.
“As such, the Authority will focus on projects aimed at safeguarding against revenue leakages which include the FDMS , scanners, drones and surveillance projects,” Chinamasa added.
According to Zimra, Chinamasa started her career as a tax assessor in 1994 in the then Department of Taxes and joined the Investigation Division of the authority at its inception in 2001.
She moved to Customs and Excise in 2011 as Head of Compliance and Risk Management. She was part of the team that introduced the authorised economic operators trade facilitation, post clearance audits among other innovations.
From 2014, she joined the Domestic Taxes Division and served in various leadership roles from Head level to Acting as Commissioner Domestic Taxes between 2016 and 2018. Chinamasa is a tax expert with over 28 years of diverse experience in the field of revenue mobilisation and enforcement of compliance to fiscal laws.