Ken Ofori-Atta’s Revenue Promise Fails -As GRA Misses Revenue Target Again

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta’s promise in June 2019 that he is confident that Ghana will meet its revenue targets in the “coming months” has failed woefully as the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) posted a revenue shortfall of over GHC 15 billion by the close of the third quarter.

The Ghana Revenue Authority as at the end of September 2019, receive an amount of GH¢ 32 billion, instead of its target of GH¢ 45 billion for the year. This latest figure was disclosed in Accra this week by Amishaddai Owusu Amoah, the Acting Commissioner General of the GRA.

This follows a string of similar failures in the past months. For instance, the Government ended the first quarter of this year with about GHC 10 billion instead of the GHC 12 billion it targeted for the period.

Last year, the projected to collect about GHC40 billion cedis but missed out on this target by a more than 5% of the target.

In an interview granted Accra-based JoyBusiness in Malabo in Equatorial Guinea on the sidelines of the Annual African Development Bank meetings in June 2019, Mr Ofori-Atta insisted that some measures the government was implementing around the time and the on-going reforms at the GRA would help improve the numbers in the coming months.

However, the latest figure shows that these touted strategies and reforms have had little impact on the ability of the government to mobilise revenues.

Critics think the reasons for this constant revenue failures is the heavy tax exemptions given certain investors and businesses-particularly, foreign businesses. Ghana is said to be losing approximately US$ 2 billion annually to these tax exemptions.