The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Seth Terkper has disclosed cabinet intention to meet very soon to review some of the targets set in the 2015 budget in order not to repeat what happened last year.
According to him the continues decline in the prices of the nation’s major export such as cocoa and gold as well as crude oil will definitely have some negative effects on the targets and data set in the budget.
Mr. Terkper was speaking at this year’s Management Retreat of the Ghana Revenue Authority in Kumasi.
The theme for the retreat is, GRA 2ND Strategic Plan 2015-2017; Implementation at the Operational Level.
The Ghana Revenue Authority, the main national revenue collection institution for government has been given a target of 21 point 98 billion Ghana cedis.
The GRA last year failed to meet its revenue target narrowly by two point seven percent due to some internal and external factors such as the erratic power supply, instability of the cedi, reduction in volumes of import, and the deferment of the implementation of VAT on fee-based financial services.
Mr. Terkper said the economy is still being run on lower middle level income country and is optimistic that the future still remains bright.
The Minister called for tax payer education to educate the taxpayer on the need for them to honour payment for national development. Internal weaknesses in revenue generation must also be addressed, while doing well to motivate staff to work extra hard to meet revenue target.
The Commissioner General of the GRA, George Blankson noted that in-spite of tha challenges that faced the economy last year, some modest achievements were recorded.
He mentioned for instance, that the Customs Division of the GRA managed to implement the Paperless Clearance System and the Enhanced Permit Module to check abuse of the Permit Clearance of goods.
Self assessment was also introduced for all taxpayers at the Medium Taxpayer offices to increase the level of voluntary compliance.
The Boardman of the GRA Ralph Tuffour assured that some recruitment will be done this year to address human resource challenge. He said the Board will work closely with management to provide logistics to enhance service delivery.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Samuel Sarpong asked members to come out with strategies to increase revue mobilization.
Source: GBC
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