The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has collected GH¢25.89 billion in tax revenue as against GH¢26.1 billion targeted for the period, resulting in a GH¢212 million shortfall.

The GRA said it collected GH¢18.45 billion in domestic tax revenue and GH¢7.44 billion from international trade or customs.

Dr Charles Addae, Deputy Commissioner in charge of Research, Strategy, Policy and Programmes at GRA, announced this at a media briefing in Accra on Wednesday when giving an update on the country’s tax mobilization efforts and measures undertaken to shore up the country’s taxes.

He said the tax revenue collected in the first half of the year showed a nominal growth of 25.6 per cent.

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Dr Addae explained that if the tax collections from other tax revenue sources such as energy debt recovery, sanitation levy, Valued Added Tax and airport charges, the GRA had collected GH¢27.17 billion as against a target of GH¢27.25 billion, representing a GH¢28 million shortfall.

Assessing the average performance of the Authority, Dr Addae said it showed that the Authority was hovering around 47.6 per cent, which was above 46 per cent recorded over the past five years.

On the contribution of the various regions to the country’s tax revenue, Dr Addae said the Greater Accra Region contributed 60.28 per cent, Western 5.02 per cent and Ashanti 4.2 per cent.

The rest of the other 13 regions’ contributions to the nation’s tax revenue was very minimal, he added.

Dr Addae observed that with the linkage of the GRA’s database to the National Identification Authority’s database, it discovered that 33,500 professionals, including medical doctors, engineers, lawyers and IT experts who had Ghana-Card but did not have tax identification numbers(TIN).

He explained that those elite professionals were earning high incomes and had, therefore, invited them for interrogation to ascertain whether or not, they were paying taxes on their earnings.

“We are chasing them because now we have their house and mobile phone numbers but that doesn’t mean that they don’t pay taxes until we have finished the interrogation,” Dr Addae explained.

Dr Addae indicated that the Authority was working collaboratively with German International Corporation ( GIZ) and the Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development Ministry to digitise and capture houses and properties being used for commercial businesses and residential purposes to charge the appropriate tax rent on them.

He advocated the need to intensify tax education drive and enforcement mechanisms to shore up the tax revenue.

The GRA, this year, set a target of GH¢60 billion in tax revenue and based on the first-half performance, Dr Addae believed that it would meet the target.

As part of the Covid-19 Fight, the Manager of Vector Control Unit of Zoomlion, Rev Ebenezer Kwame Addae, has underscored the need for a massive disinfection across all public places in the country in the wake of an imminent third wave.

He explained that such an exercise was necessary to help mitigate the spike in what appears to be a third wave of the deadly Delta variant.

Ghana, according to reports, has recorded the deadly Delta variant in some schools across the country, a situation he described as worrying and unfortunate.

He noted that a nationwide massive disinfection of all public places in the country will complement government in halting any further surge in the virus

Rev Addae made the call on Wednesday July 28, 2021, during the scheduled monthly disinfection of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

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With regards to the potency of the chemicals used to combat the Delta variant, he disclosed that his outfit currently uses a chemical that contains hydrogen peroxide property.

He further explained that the company had not settled on one particular chemical but all chemicals prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as potent enough to combat the virus.

“Due to the severity of the Delta virus, we use chemical which can combat it. We started with Hypo Chlorine, viral oxy, one drop plus all of these are strong but we change as and when the virus changes,” Rev Addae said.

On the use of hydrogen peroxide, he explained that it has a residual effect that enables it last for six months or more rather than the earlier hypo chloride.
The sprayers from Zoomlion carefully disinfected terminals 1, 2 and 3 with particular focus on door handles, touchable surfaces as a measure of containing the spread of the disease.

The exercise, which was strategically scheduled, commenced at 10:00 p.m., on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, which saw the team of sprayers use knapsack sprayers to get rid of all possible disease-causing deadly virus.

At the terminal 1, 2 and 3, while some the team of sprayers took turns to disinfect the ground, chairs and tables, others dusted surfaces machines and devices at the airport.

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Open spaces of the KIA were also not left out. With the help of an atomiser, the airport environment was thoroughly disinfected to ensure the safety of both airport staff members and passengers.

Places disinfected included departure and arrival halls, washrooms amongst others.

Ghana | Atinkaonline.com