Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister for Finance, says the country has long lived with a culture of discriminatory practices by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), but this has now changed.

Reacting to complaints by some businesses that the Authority has been harassing them unduly, he said the GRA has now become more transparent in how it deals with businesses.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin, Ofori-Atta said: “We have gone through a culture of discriminatory practices by GRA. I mean, I have run business for a long time and you had some grotesque incidents, I would say, in that regard.

“But then, with much more transparency, in which I know the numbers that you have and you know the numbers that [I] have, then we can reconcile.

Revenue mobilization
“I think that the issue of the coercion of the state will be reduced and the sense of the use of the word ‘harassment’ will also reduce, because we all have the same numbers,” he said.

The government is set to roll out measures to mobilize more revenue for its flagship programmes.

Presenting the 2021 Mid-Year Budget Review, the Finance Minister said the government is aware of the critical importance of additional revenue to implement the national recovery and transformation agenda.

“We are therefore transforming the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to drive our quest for burden-sharing and sustainable revenue mobilization,” he told Parliament.

Ofori-Atta said the transformation agenda is not just about mobilizing more revenue: it is equally about mobilizing sustainably with the help of technology.

RACE initiative
The government is building robust and integrated data systems under the Ghana CARES programme to advance the cause, he said.

“We have also established the Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement (RACE) initiative to complement the efforts of the Ghana Revenue Authority …

“The remit of RACE is to identify and prevent revenue leakages while reinforcing the culture of compliance nationwide.”

The minister said the GRA will activate the prosecution unit fully to bring into line recalcitrant taxpayers and other individuals who infringe Ghana’s revenue laws. The unit’s work will drive compliance and reduce tax evasion and tax fraud.

“Mr Speaker, the establishment of the tax courts this year will ensure the speedy trial of tax cases and the necessary punitive measures handed out where necessary.

“The operationalization of the Independent Tax Appeals Board, on the other hand, will afford taxpayers the opportunity for redress where taxpayers are not satisfied with the actions of the revenue authority.

“The government’s objective is not to hound taxpayers, but rather to ensure that we all pay our fair share of taxes,” Ofori-Atta said.