GRA staff to now implement ‘name & shame’ strategy to bridge revenue gap

To tackle this challenge the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has started a new programme known as “operation collect, name, and shame”.

The initiative will ensure that the names of individuals and organisations that have and continue to default in their tax obligations to the state published.

Currently, Ghana’s tax revenue to GDP is estimated at 13% which is lower compared to the average collection rate of between 19 and 20 percent among its peers in West Africa.

According to officials and tax experts, this is partly due to the shortfalls especially from the customs duties at the ports.

This has also made it difficult for the GRA to retain enough to meet its administrative expenses which have more often than not led to staff agitations in the recent past. This has therefore led the organized labour of the authority to support the initiative.

Speaking at the launch of the program, the Co-ordinator for the task force for the tax mobilization drive, Ken Tweneboah Koduah said that the authority is committed to improving domestic revenue collection.

“We already have the list of those owing in all the offices of the Domestic Revenue Tax division and the team will be moving from office to office with deadlines making sure that these taxes are collected. For VAT, we are looking at the taxpayers who are supposed to issue VAT but are not doing so. These are mostly found in the hotel, construction, and commercial business sectors,” he said.

“These people have collected VAT and are supposed to account to the GRA but are not doing so despite the fact that there are interests to be paid for defaulting. We hope this will go a long way to enhance indirect revenue,” he added.

On his part, the Commissioner-General of the GRA, Emmanuel Kofi Nti emphasized that the outfit will not fail to sanction officers who are found complicit in the revenue shortfall.