ATAF WOMEN IN TAX NETWORK (AWITN) ELECT NEW BOARD COUNCIL 

On 23^rd November, in Pretoria, south Africa, the ATAF Women In Tax Network has elected a new board Member. Ms Veronique Herminie has been elected new board Chair, while Ms Jeneba Bangura was elected Vice-Chair.

Mrs Veronique Herminie

Mrs Herminie, the incoming Board chair, is currently the CEO of Taylor Smith Naval Services and was the Commissioner General of the Seychelles Revenue Commission from 2019 to 2023.

Mrs Herminie is a Certified Chartered Accountant and Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). She is also an experienced negotiator having been involved in the European Union/Seychelles Fisheries Agreement negotiations and a number of double taxation agreement negotiations for Seychelles. She has had an enriching career spanning 30 years and covering various sectors including industries, land use management, land use planning, investment, taxation, financing and lending, auditing, energy, agriculture, fisheries, transport, tourism, environment and construction.

Dr Amelia Muendane

The outgoing Board chair Dr Muendane is the President of the Mozambican Tax Authority (Autoridade Tributária de Moçambique) and has headed the organization since September 2015. Prior to her appointment, she was the Deputy at the Ministry of Economy and Finance from January to August 2015 and the Deputy Minister of Planning and Development from 2011 to 2014.

She holds degrees in Economics from the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and in Business Management from the Catholic University of Mozambique.

Ms Jeneba Bangura

Ms Bangura, the newly elected Vice-chair, is the Deputy Minster 1 of the Sierra Leonian Ministry of Finance. Prior to her appointment, she was the Deputy Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority.

She has over 25 years’ experience in public and financial policy and accounting in government, private and the not-for-profit sectors. She is a Certified Public Accountant and has a Masters degree in Public Administration.

Ms Chenai Mukumba

Ms Mukumba is the Executive Director of Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), where she previously held the role of the Policy Research and Advocacy Manager.

Prior to joining TJNA, she worked as the Director of the Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) International, Lusaka, a research and advocacy think tank with offices in Africa and Asia, originally joining them as a Policy Analyst for Trade, Economics and Environment in India. Ms Mukumba also worked at the World Trade Organization in the Agriculture and Development Divisions.

She has a Masters in International Relations from Wits University, Johannesburg.

Ms Dinina-Dama Bamaze

Madame Bamaze is the Head of the Recovery Division at the Directorate of Large Enterprises at the Office Togolais des Recettes, Togo.

She holds a Master’s degree in Business Law the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) du Togo, a Master’s degree in Tax Administration, International Program from the Université Paris Dauphine and a Master’s degree in Public Procurement and Project Financing from the Institut Supérieur de Droit et d’Interprétariat (ISDI).

Ms Regina Chinamasa

Ms Chinamasa is the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. She started her career as a Tax Assessor in 1994 in the then Department of Taxes and joined the Investigation Division of ZIMRA 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 (AEOs) 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.

Ms 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.

Ms Yanga Mputa

Ms Mputa is the Tax Ombud of South Africa. She is an Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. She joined the National Treasury in 2014 as Chief Director, Legal Tax Design. Prior to that, she was a Tax Specialist at the South African Revenue Service from 2009.

In her role at the National Treasury, she played a sterling role in the development of South Africa’s annual tax legislation, as she oversaw the designing and drafting of all tax legislation, including the negotiating of tax treaties. Her work involved working closely with the two finance committees of Parliament, to finalise the tax legislation together with other National Treasury and SARS colleagues.

She also served as the South African representative on the OECD/G20 Steering Group of the Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) since January 2017.

Ms Mputa holds BProc and LLB degrees from the former University of Transkei, an LLM degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, an MCom in International Tax from North-West University (Potchefstroom), and a Postgraduate Diploma in Tax Law from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Ms Laila Benchekroun

Ms Benchekroun is the Head of International Taxation and Cooperation Division at the Moroccan Tax Administration. Prior to this, she was the Head of Tax Treaty and Negotiations. She also worked with the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) as a Senior Research Associate and was also a Senior Tax Auditor at Direction Générale des Impôts Maroc.

She holds an LLM in International Taxation from Leiden University, a Certificate in Taxation from the Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA in International Finance from the University of New Mexico.

Prof Teju Somorin

Prof Somorin is currently the Dean of the College of Postgraduate Studies at the Caleb University in Nigeria. She was the President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation Nigeria from 2015 to 2017, the President of the West African Union of Tax Institutes also from 2015 to 2017 and the Head of the Association of African Yax Institutes from 2016 to 2019.

She is the first female professor of taxation in Nigeria and was the first Nigerian to obtain an MTAX Degree from the University of Paris in 1982. She is also the first female to head the Association of African Tax Institutes (AATI); the Pioneer Dean, Tax Administration Faculty, CITN, (2013); and the first female Professor of Caleb University.

Having worked in the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for 34 years, seventeen of which were on the Directorate level, she retired as a Coordinating Director (first female) and was Number 3 in the then hierarchy of FIRS. At FIRS, she was the first female to occupy eleven other distinct positions.