The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says contracting the services of consulting firm Mckinsey accounted for the improved revenue collection for the year 2018.
In July 2018, the GRA engaged the services of consultancy firm, McKinsey, to provide advice to the authority and train its personnel to improve revenue collection.
However some analysts thought the move was unnecessary because the GRA was already implementing some measures blocking the loopholes in revenue collection.
The GRA was also implementing some reforms at the port including the Cargo Tracking Notes as part of efforts to meet the target.
Records from the Authority showed that it missed its 2018 revenue target of Ghc39.8 billion.
The GRA was able to raise Ghc37.6 billion showing a 5.7 percent deficit.
However the Commissioner General of the GRA, Emmanuel Kofi Nti said McKinney’s contribution to revenue collection last year, was significant.
“Last quarter of the year we did well because they were offering good advice and helping us with the kind of work that we were doing. Actually at the customs area, getting to the third quarter was not good. And against 2017, we were recording negative growth. So with the work of McKinsey helping us we did relatively well. The customs area improved,” Mr. Nti said in an interview during a Thanksgiving service organized by GCNET.
He pointed out that one of the major challenges affecting is how to broaden the tax net to ensure a lot more people in the informal sector pay taxes.
As part of measures to improve tax collection, the GRA introduced the Tax Identification among others to ensure easy identification of taxable people.
But tax experts, including Ali Nakyea, believes the GRA should rather focus more on easing the procedure of tax payment as well as build more offices to attract tax payers.
The GRA is confident it will meet the 2019 domestic revenue target of Ghc45 billion cedis.
“Going forward we know we will be doing well. The issue was that everybody was doing wait and see. But now CTN has come to stay. And we believe that customs will be doing well in 2019”, Mr. Nti said.
Source: Citibusinessnews.com
