By Omar Bah
The Gambia Revenue Authority has temporarily shut down Shapoorji-Pallonji Mideast, the Indian construction giant working on the US$53.46 million University of The Gambia Faraba campus, over unpaid taxes.
The Standard has learnt that the company was closed for non-compliance with Section 215 of the Income and Value Added Tax Act, 2012. The section empowers GRA to seal business premises and distraint assets for failure to pay taxes due.
Shapoorji-Pallonji, one of India’s biggest construction firms signed the US$53.46 million contract with the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (MoHERST) in 2016 to build the flagship UTG Faraba Banta campus, a project meant to end UTG’s chronic space crisis and relocate faculties from Banjul and Brikama.
Nearly a decade later, the campus remains incomplete, plagued by delays, cost variations, and funding disputes, drawing repeated National Assembly scrutiny.
The GRA enforcement came at a time when the authority is hard pressed to deliver on its target revenue collection.
Government tasked GRA to collect a whopping D27.5 billion this year, a 13% increase from last year to fund the budget and reduce reliance on grants and expensive borrowing.
Commissioner General Yankuba Darboe has already declared the Authority is on track after a record start with D7.7 billion collected in Q1 2026 alone, including a historic D3.1 billion in March, the first time GRA crossed D3 billion in a single month. In 2025, GRA collected D25.3 billion, beating its D23 billion target by 10 per cent.
Under Darboe, GRA has hinged its revenue surge on digital reforms — ASYCUDA World, digital tax stamps, electronic invoicing, rental compliance — and aggressive enforcement against both Gambian and foreign companies.