International ICT Expert (IC)

Background

Afghanistan is a mountainous country with the rate of people living below the poverty line up to 55% and unemployment at 47%. The Government of Afghanistan (GoA) is committed to re-invigorate the country’s economy, empower Afghans and Afghan institutions for better service delivery, create jobs, and promote peace-building and sustainable development.

The Afghanistan Revenue Department (ARD) depends from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) with a total of 752 MoF HQ employees. ARD administers and collects the tax and non-tax revenue for the GoA in accordance with the Income Tax Law, 2009 and the Tax Administration law 2015. ARD’s responsibilities are divided across 8 Directorates and 30 Sub Directorates geographically dispersed in Kabul. The broader economic and political environment affecting revenue administration and collection includes the substantial gap between sustainable domestic revenue growth and total GoA expenditures. Closing the gap will require a combination of policy and administration measures to enhance the tax base while the economic growth is boosted. However, this will demand time and a more peaceful environment.

In recent years, ARD has made important progress in increasing taxpayers’ compliance and tax revenue collectionwith the support of the donor community.  These efforts include a wide range of reforms and restructuring within the ARD, particularly the segmentation of the taxpayers into Large, Medium and Small groups and the rollout out of these offices to some selected provinces. However, a few gaps and deficiencies still exist in both the organisational structure and in the operations of the ARD as an institution.

ARD is currently using Standard Integrated Government Tax Administration System (SIGTAS) as the core system for the tax administration since 2009. There are old technologies, which are not extendible, lack of documentation and guidance for planned integrations with third parties & other government entities and documentation of SIGTAS gaps in the current system. However, the ICT expert shall assist ARD in the aforementioned issues and develop the functional design document which will be base for technical design document which would have been prepared by the software architectwhom will be hired by WB and will jointly work with ICT expert based on the existing system and ARD’s requirements. The functional document would be the base for developing the new tax administration system for ARD and National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA).

ARD has taken initiatives to fundamentally reform its tax information system, while such a major change requires considerable expertise and experience in documenting, tax systems (SIGTAS) models and business processes, as well as integration with other government sectors and reviewing the existing tax system business processes. ARD consider that with the removing the existing gaps and the enhancing and modernizing the system performance with proper documentation will contribute to the identification and collection of tax liabilities and provide better and modern services for taxpayers.  The ARD lacks proper documentation of the different information systems such as: SIGTAS, E-FILING, ASYCUDA interface, SIGTAS data model.

SIGTAS data and quality play an important role in ensuring that the ARD has a reliable system that can rely on the data coming out of this system. It is also important to have the migration of data in the new system and this requires a detailed analysis followed by identifying data defects, data clean-up and strategies to integrate taxpayer accounts in the new system, in order to preserve the continuity of the taxpayer's history but also to enable the calculation of tax liabilities in case of audit, etc. Internal reporting capabilities are very much inadequate for head-office staff, branch management and line officers. Information is scattered, and little documentation exists.

ARD management considers it is necessary to hire international ICT expert to support the improvements of ICT capabilities of the organization.

Job Summary:

Documents of Reference

1. The consultant will be framed by the following documents:
   1. Partially existing SIGTAS user guide, dated 2009-2012.
   2. SIGTAS current environment, network structure and database, dated 2009-2012.
   3. Digital Foundation Strategy for Afghanistan, dated 2019.
   4. Any other documents that will help the service to expand the background and understand better the local context.

Tasks and Activities

2. The service will carry out the following tasks and activities but not necessarily restricted to those:

1. Draft the functional specifications document (FSD) including the validations for the below mentioned SIGTAS modules.
   1. Registration
   2. Accounting
   3. Filing & E-Filing
   4. Assessment
   5. Payments
   6. VAT module
   7. Refund
   8. Objection
   1. Exemption
   10. Audit
   11. Configurations
   50. Mapping of core processes
2. ARD systems assessment
   1. Review the current integration of the system with other entities, prepare the assessment report, and provide clear recommendation.
   2. Draft the assessment report of the current processes (subject to the modules in SIGTAS) of each single module; provide clear recommendation for the processes’ simplifications in accordance with article# 3. 
3. Analysis of current SIGTAS business processes of:
   1. Calculation procedures and law requirements
   2. Taxpayer Identification Numbers
   3. Taxpayer Registration 
   4. Tax Assessment
   5. Documents 
   6. Case modules
   7. Tax transaction and Charges 
   8.  (Taxpayer registry, taxpayer filing history, tax transaction charges and tax accounting balances)

Deliverables

4. The service will draft reports describing main results and recommendations:
   1. Draft the functional specifications document including the validations, business process simplification and document of the current SIGTAS modules.
   2. Draft the assessment report for existing systems with recommendations to improve.
   3. Support the software architect, ARD and NSIA teams on developing the technical specifications in terms of new development, customization and business processes simplification, workflow development and data model to enhance current system and develop the replacement of the current system.
   4. Draft Data integration strategies to support integration between current SIGTAS system and the new system.

Extend and Coordination

3. The International ICT expert will require one year (6 working days a week).
4. The ICT expert will coordinate with Mr. Mustafa Khalazaie, Revenue System Director as the main focal point in ARD with the following contact details:

1. 1. Email: mustafa.khalazie@mof.gov.af
   2. Tel: +93788 776 909

 The ARD will provide a space (at ARD and/or NSIA) and a computer connected to a printer. The expert can use the meetings rooms previously booked.

Qualification Criteria:

The ICT expert should have a demonstrated international experience (over 10 Years) in developing the functional design documents for tax administration systems. At least should have two implementation projects in the tax administration and/or revenue administration, preferably SIGTAS. As well as, he/she should acquire an expert level of knowledge in SIGTAS, E-Filing and ASYCUDA, the treasury (preferably AFMIS) and banking systems.

Location: Based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Submission Guidelines:Eligibility requirements in compliance with paragraphs 3.21, 3.22, & 3.23 of theWorld Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, Procurement In investment Projects Financing, Goods, Works, Non-Consulting and Consulting Services July 2016, revised November 2017.

The attention of interested Consultants is drawn to paragraph 3.16 and 3.17 of the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, Procurement In investment Projects Financing, Goods, Works, Non-Consulting and Consulting Services July 2016, revised November 2017, setting forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest.  In addition, please refer to the following information on conflict of interest related to this assignment as per paragraph 3.16 and 3.17 of World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers available at www.worldbank.org/.

Individual Consultants will be selected through IC in accordance with the procedures set out in the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, Procurement in investment Projects Financing, Goods, Works, Non-Consulting and Consulting Services July 2016, revised November 2017.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below (in person, by mail, or by e-mail) by DATE, 19 July, 2021 by 23:45 Hours.

Please submit your CVs to the blow email address:

Jawad.ahmadzai@yahoo.com and copy to mustafa.khalazie@mof.gov.af and eimaljahangir@mof.gov.af