The Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rev. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah has announced that the GRA has exceeded its revised revenue target of the 2020 fiscal year by 6.0 percent.
He disclosed this in his official Twitter handle on Friday, January 22, 2021 and was sighted by the Vaultz News.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, am delighted to announce that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative impact on business, the GRA was able to meet its 2020 revised revenue target. The authority was tasked to collect a revised tax revenue target of GHS 42,769.50 million. As of December 2020, we had collected GHS 45,338.69 million exceeding the budget by GHS2, 569.19 million, a positive deviation of 6.0%”.
Rev. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah
According to the Commissioner-General, the 2020 fiscal year saw an increase in revenue collected by the GRA by 4.5 percent year-on-year. He pointed out that both direct and indirect revenues collected over the period exceeded their targets.
“Direct taxes also saw an increase and if you want to look at the breakdown, was 22.2 billion against 22.1 billion. Then if you take customs, customs were supposed to collect 10.9 billion but collected 12.6 billion. Then if you take indirect taxes, we are supposed to collect 9.7 billion but we collected 10.6 billion”.
Owusu-Amoah
Similarly, the Ghana Revenue Authority exceeded its revenue collection target for the 2019 fiscal year by 3.2 percent. A fate that was attained for the first time in two years preceding 2019.
The Authority collected GH¢43.76 billion in 2019, as against a target of GH¢42.08 billion, GH¢1.68 billion in excess for 2019. The 2019 collection was 15.5 percent more than what was collected in 2018, which was GH¢37.68 billion.
Mr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, who disclosed the provisional figures said the excellent performance by the authority was largely due to several measures rolled out during the year, adding that the feat would serve as a great impetus for achieving the target set for 2020.
In 2019, domestic revenue amounted to GH¢31.9 billion, against a target of GH¢29.84 billion, while customs duties settled at GH¢12.01 billion, against a target of GH¢12.24 billion. Excise duties also posted a significant performance, as last year’s collection saw a 10.32 percent increase over the previous year’s.
It can be recalled that in December last year, the Chairman of the Implementation Team of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), Emmanuel Ohene disclosed that the government exceeded its revenue target in August and November 2020 from Ghana’s ports.
This, he attributed to the introduction of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) at the ports.
“Tema collection in November has exceeded its target. In August, ICUMS was responsible for Revenue target being exceeded”.
Emmanuel Ohene
He pointed out that it was worth recommendations considering the negative impact of the coronavirus on the global shipping business. According to him, an amount of GH¢1.2 billion was realized monthly since the introduction of ICUMS.
The recent performance of tax revenues collection by the GRA is very refreshing as the country’s revenue to GDP ratio is among the lowest in the African continent.
An increase in revenue mobilization is a positive sign as it shows that the economy is regaining life after the damages inflicted on it by the COVID-19 pandemic.
