Revenue collection agencies asked to save the country

Koforidua, April 20, GNA - The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Kwado Baah-Wiredu, has called on revenue mobilization agencies to mobilize enough domestic revenue to support the country's development efforts if the country was not to relapse into the conditions that necessitated her becoming a Highly Indebted Poor Country(HIPC).

To this end, he challenged direct tax administrators to cast their net wider, device new and cost effective ways of mobilizing revenue while at the same time being professional, flexible and imaginative in their dealings with tax payers.

Mr Baah-Wiredu's call was contained in a keynote address read on his behalf by Mr Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, at the opening of a Management Seminar of the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) at Koforidua.

The three-day seminar had the theme: "Institutional development-a tool for enhanced revenue mobilization", was being attended by departmental and regional heads of the Service. Mr Baah-Wiredu reminded the tax administrators that the targets set for them this year posed a challenge to them to work harder than before to enable them to achieve the targets, assuring that the government would provide them the needed motivation to enable them to excel. To this end, he announced that his Ministry would provide the IRS with eight billion cedis this year to enable it revamp its logistical base.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said the government would help build the capacity of the staff in line with its priority of human resource development for accelerated growth.

The Minister referred to the Service's introduction of the Tax Stamp as tax collection for the informal sector last year, but expressed regret that not much was being achieved from the tool. He, therefore, asked the seminar to rethink its implementation and come out with measures that could penetrate the sector for the operators to contribute their fair share of taxes to match the benefits they derive from government.

The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Yaw Barimah, who inaugurated the seminar, called on the management of the IRS to step up their tax education campaigns on a sustained basis as the surest way of enhancing revenue mobilization, especially among the informal sector. While commending the Service for its achievements in tax collection over the years, which had enabled government to undertake a number of development projects nationwide, he, however, said there was more room for improvement, especially in casting the tax net wider.

Mr. Barimah referred to the just-ended Regional People's Assemblies during which the people complained of high taxation facing them and asked the Management to devise efficient tax collection strategies that could increase revenue without necessarily increasing taxation. The Executive Secretary of the Revenue Agencies Governing Board(RAGB), Mr Harry Owusu, called on the revenue agencies to re-engineer their methods of revenue mobilization to exceed their targets.

He announced that the Board was to sponsor some staff of the agencies to South Africa, this year, among other local professional institutions, as part of its capacity building programme for them. The Omanahene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, Daasebre Oti Boateng, advocated the adoption of Alternative Dispute Resolution Courts and the involvement of traditional rulers in the resolution of tax cases and enhancing of revenue mobilization.