The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced exceeding its revenue target for the fiscal year 2020.
The Acting Commissioner-General of GRA, Rev. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, made the announcement to the media at a press soiree held on Friday, January 22, 2021 at the Alisa Hotel in Accra.
According to him, the Authority initially budgeted to collect total tax revenue of GH₵ 47,253.95 million for the 2020 fiscal year, adding that this represented 7.6% growth over the actual tax revenue collections of GH₵ 43,907.12 million for the 2019 fiscal year.
However, the Acting Commissioner-General observed that as a result of the impact of COVID-19 global pandemic, the budget was revised to GH₵ 42,769.50 million.
According to him, the revised budget represented 2.6% negative growth over the actual revenue collection of GH₵ 43,907.12 million in 2019.
He further stated that “I am delighted to announce that despite the COVID- 19 pandemic and its negative impact on businesses, the GRA was able to meet its 2020 revised revenue target.”
As at December 2020, he disclosed, GRA had collected GH₵ 45,338.69 million exceeding the budget by GH₵ 2,569.19 million thus, with a positive deviation of 6.0%, adding that this performance represents a nominal growth rate of 3.3% over the same period in 2019.
In 2020, domestic revenue grew by a nominal rate of 2.8% while Customs collection grew by 4.5%, he told the media.
“The reasons for this performance can be attributed to factors such as: – Target (GH₵ 22,153.64 billion) Collection (GH₵ 22, 212.66) – Target (GH₵ 9,698.66) Collection (GH₵ 10,583.37)
– Target (GH₵ 10,917.20) Collection (GH₵ 12,583.37),” according to him.
“The Authority undertook a lot of compliance exercises which unearthed revenue that would have been undetected and also blocked some loopholes,” he added, saying audits were strengthened and a new department, the Tax Audit and Quality Assurance Department was set up and these went a long way to aid revenue mobilization.
2021 Target
According to him, in 2021, waiting for the Ministry of Finance to come out with the budget for the year, GRA has set for itself an aggressive target to collect a provisional tax revenue of GHC60 billion.
” This constitutes a 32.3% increase over the 2020 actual collection,” he stated, adding that “This task I must admit, appears quite daunting at first sight, but this will not deter us as an organisation. With hard work, a right attitude and innovative measures, we can achieve the target.”
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