Parliament urges Judicial Service to establish Tax Tribunals

Accra, Mar. 9, GNA- Parliament on Tuesday, unanimously approved an amount of 387.617 billion cedis for the Revenue Agencies, with a call on the Judicial Service to expedite action on the establishment of Tax Tribunals in the country.

The call, contained in the Parliamentary Finance Committee report on the budgetary estimates, noted, "despite the approval of the House for the establishment of Tax Tribunals, those institutions have not yet been established."

Mr. Eugene Atta Agyepong, Chairman of the Finance Committee, who presented report in seconding a motion for the approval of the Revenue Agencies budget, said the Tax Tribunals would assist the Revenue Agencies to deal with cases of tax violation expeditiously.

He said out of the total amount approved for the three revenue agencies, 163.526 billion cedis will go to Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), 133.316 billion cedis would go to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the remaining 80.742 billion will go to the VAT Service.

Mr. Agyepong said the committee was glad that the Revenue Agencies beat their revenue mobilization targets by 50 per cent last year and urged the Ministry of Finance to provide them with the needed funding and logistics to do better this year.

In another development a total of 51.249 billion cedis, comprising of 24.069 billion cedis government component and 27.18 billion donor component, was unanimously approved for the service of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) for the 2004 fiscal year.

The motion for the approval of the NDPC budget was moved by Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning and seconded by the Parliamentary Finance Committee Chairman, Mr. Agyepong.

Out of the total amount approved for NDPC, 2.091 billion cedis was for personnel emoluments, 1.118 billion cedis for administration, eight billion cedis for service and four billion for investments, mainly in poverty related projects, as the NDPC is charged with the duty of monitoring the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS).