GRA rejects Auditor-General’s claim of GH?3.26bn loss

• Posted on September 26, 2022September 26, 2022
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is refuting claim that the country has lost GH?3.26 billion as reported in the 2021 Auditor General’s report.

According to the GRA, the said amount, which was Energy Sector Levies, was not culcated in the assessment conducted by the Audit Service in May 2022.

A statement signed by Florence Asante, Assistant Commissioner, Communication and Public Affairs, GRA, clarified that the circumstances leading to the money being tagged “unaccounted”.

She explained further that the GRA furnished the Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD) with provisional revenue figures for 2021 of GH?60.69 billion in March 2022, including Energy Sector Levies totaling GH?3.2 billion.

“In May 2022, the Audit Service conducted an audit of revenue collected by GRA in 2021 and arrived at a figure of GH?57.43 billion,” excerpts of the statement said, noting that but the aforementioned figure did not take into consideration the Energy Sector Levies that GRA reports on such as Energy Debt Service, Energy Debt Recovery, Power Generation and Sanitation and Pollution levy.

“These levies totaling GH?3.2 billion were omitted from the Audit report even though the figures were provided,” she mentioned.

Mrs. Asante stressed further that at GRA, no revenue was missing.

Per earlier explanation given by Dr John Kumah, the Deputy Minister of Finance, she indicated that the differences in data generated by different agencies did not necessarily show loss of revenue to the Government.

Per the Auditor General in its 2021 report, the GRA and the Ministry of Finance reported a total tax revenue of GH?57.43 billion, the records of Controller and Accountant General Department showed a total tax revenue of GH?60 billion.

It, therefore, said that GH?3.26 billion was unaccounted for between the three institutions.

Providing details, the Auditor General noted that Direct and Indirect taxes reported by CAGD amounted to GH?27.7 billion (GH?27,709,806,120) and GH?32.9 billion (GH?32,979,232,570) respectively in the Government Accounts.

It said that the amount, compared with GRA reported tax revenue of GH?27.6 billion and GH?29.8 billion for direct and indirect taxes respectively, resulted in an overstatement of tax revenue of GH?3.26 billion.

By Vincent Kubi