Revenue Board to deepen its supervisory role

Story: Boahene Asamoah

THE Revenue Agency Governing Board (RAGB) is to deepen its supervisory role over all the tax agencies, to help reduce to the barest minimum processes of tax procedures at the country’s ports.
It will also undertake capacity building to strengthen the human resource needs of the tax agencies.
At the Tax Collectors Awards in Accra, the Chairman of the RAGB, Mr Kwabena Osei, said the move was part of the board’s strategies to ensure efficiency in tax mobilisation in the country.
He said there was the need to ensure efficiency in tax processes in order to strengthen the human resources of the tax agencies to ensure that the country generated the needed revenues.
The RAGB instituted the awards scheme three years ago to reward its stakeholders. The two previous awards were given to companies and organisations.
This year’s award is the first to be awarded to staff of the three main tax collection agencies, namely, the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Value Added Tax (VAT) Service.
In all, about 50 personnel from the three tax organisations from all over the country were rewarded for their dedication to duty and also for helping to increase tax revenue.
Mr Osei said over the past five years, revenue had increased from GH¢6.6 billion (¢6.65 trillion) to GH¢23.7 billion (¢23.7 billion) and expressed the hope that the trend in the increase of tax revenue would be sustained.
He said the agency would pursue policies that would ensure that tax revenue was enhanced to ensure that the government was able to generate the needed resources for development.
Mr Osei said as a first step, the agency would next year sponsor two persons each who had distinguished themselves from the three agencies to undergo training abroad as part of a programme to enhance the capacity of the staff and also to motivate them.
A Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Anthony Akoto-Osei, said the ministry was devising strategies that would ensure tax compliance of all individuals and companies to ensure that the country derived maximum revenue for development.
He said the government was mindful of the fact that there was also the need to motivate the staff of the revenue agencies and said the government was in support of the award scheme.
Mr Akoto-Osei stated that although indications were that as of July this year the revenue target had been exceeded by 1.3 per cent, there was the need for the agencies to double their efforts.
He said there was also the need to broaden the tax base to rope in more people to accelerate the country’s development agenda.
The Executive Secretary of the RAGB, Mr Harry Owusu, stated that the awards were meant to recognise the contributions of staff of the three agencies who had distinguished themselves creditably during the course of last year.