Source:
https://scmp.com/country-reports/country-reports/topics/ghana-business-report-june-2019/article/3013870/technology
Country Reports

Technology highly increases revenue collection within GRA

  • The Ghana Revenue Authority aims to encourage foreign investors to come to the country
Emmanuel Kofi Nti, commissioner-general of Ghana Revenue Authority

Ghana has been a politically stable country since 2001. Thanks to our understanding of parliamentary democracy, this political system keeps deepening over time.

Ghanaian people are very receptive, they are hospitable and not too diehard on issues, which gives them the ability to accommodate different opinions. We are a country rich in natural resources, we have gold, cocoa, timber and now we also have oil.

We have a financial regime that aims to encourage foreign investors to come to Ghana, which results in incentives that allow investors to easily come in and repatriate profits.

The key challenge that we face is that payment of taxes is not widespread. The percentage of contributors is on the low side. There are three types, the non-oil tax revenue, oil revenue and the grants that allows developers to come our way. Non-oil tax revenue represents the major share of the revenue collected by GRA, about 80 per cent of the revenue needed to run the state. GRA plays a central role in raising the resources to meet both government current and non-current expenditure.

For 2018, our objective was to raise revenue of about 39.8 billion cedi (HK$58.2 billion). What we have come up with are excise tax stamps, so that every bottle of mineral water or alcoholic beverage in the market has a tax stamp on it, improving the accountability of manufacturers reporting to us. We are also doing background research on various companies, regarding the reporting of mandatory employees’ salary deductions. As we continue with all these programmes, we will improve our revenue collection system. Finally, we have tightened up customs processes at the ports, to ensure the accountability is right, through cargo tracking notes.

Foreign companies are highly compliant in regards to tax revenue. In the oil and gas sector, where the main players in the market are foreign, revenue collection is sizeable. A similar pattern occurs in the financial, mining and telecom sectors, where foreign companies are also important participants.

China is our number one trading partner and we believe that increased Sino-Ghanaian relations will be beneficial for both countries.