We’re confident we’ll achieve revenue target by end of 2019 – GRA

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has expressed confidence in its ability to achieve its set revenue target for the year 2019.

According to the authority, its revenue target for 2019 was pegged at GHC45 billion and as at September 2019, an amount of GHC32 billion had been obtained.

The Acting Commissioner General of the GRA, Mr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah has however said that there’s a high possibility the Authority will achieve its figures by end of the year.

Mr Owusu-Amoah made this known during an interaction with the media on October 23, 2019.

Explaining the measures set out to meet the remainder of the target, Owusu-Amoah said GRA has scheduled a number of revenue collection exercises to embark on before the year ends and cautioned that tax defaulters and evaders will be prosecuted if found flouting tax regulations.

“We have not met our target for the year at the moment. Our full-year target is GHC45 billion and as at the end of September, we’re at GHC32 billion. Normally towards the end of the quarter, there’re more collections done in the last quarter of the year,” he said.

Adding that, “with these measures that we’re taking, we will ensure that we collect whatever we need to collect and we’re confident that we’ll meet the target.”

He further admonished business persons to voluntarily fulfil their tax obligations or risk being taken through the full rigours of the law.

“The message is clear if you violate the laws, not only will we ensure that you pay but if we identify that it’s fraudulent, we will also prosecute you. It even goes to people who even work in these enterprises where young tellers are forced to forge the documents, we’ll not only arrest the proprietor of the enterprise but also the employees who connive with their employers to evade the tax,” he said.

Commissioner of Customs at the GRA, Colonel Kwadwo Damoah, earlier in an interview with reporters explained that the reduction in the benchmark values by government has affected the expected revenue from imports and this is expected to continue.

In April 2019, the government announced a fifty per cent reduction in the benchmark values of all imports while vehicles witnessed a thirty per cent drop.

The move, according to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, was to make Ghana competitive as well as provide a competitive alternative to other ports in West Africa.