Accra, Oct. 7, GNA – The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has launched its Revised Service Charter as part of this year’s Customer Service Week to help the Authority improve on its Customer Service delivery, while paying attention to the taxpayers.
The launch was on the theme: “GRA Celebrates Service”.
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance, in a speech read on his behalf by Mrs Stella Williams, the Coordinating Director (Operations), said it was gratifying that GRA was rededicating itself to focus on ways to keep customers satisfied.
He said there was the need to significantly improve revenue as Ghana’s Tax-to-GDP ratio of less than 14 per cent was significantly lower than the average for 30 African countries (which is 16.5 per cent), and much lower than some comparable lower middle-income countries.
The Minister said Ghana’s tax gap was also significant with the total corporate tax gap being about 85.6 per cent, import tax gap was around 32.5 per cent and VAT compliance gap was around 39.3 per cent according to the last World Bank Tax Gap Analysis Report.
He said a major source of the revenue underperformance was from low tax compliance while non-compliance and tax evasion were closely linked with perceptions of poor tax administration and a less than satisfactory customer experience.
“We must always keep in mind that, naturally, paying taxes is never pleasant. Even the richest individuals and businesses are not immediately ready to part with a few notes in the name of tax. The average citizen of every country pays taxes only because he or she is required to do so,” he added.
He called on GRA to continue to put the people first and try to understand and meet them more than halfway and urged staff of GRA to ensure that the customers were satisfied to enable pay taxes willingly and with a smile.
He said competing needs and the current cost of living trends required that GRA makes customer convenience the watch word and it was imperative that the customer’s needs be attended to in a timely, courteous, and non-complicated manner.
He commended the Authority for taking the bold initiative to develop a Service Charter and going ahead, after some years, to have it revised.
GRA needs to continue to benchmark itself against international good practices and drive excellent service delivery.
“In addition to revising the Customer Service Charter, and celebrating our customers this week, we must also continue to educate them. This education must focus on both the obligations of the citizens and the basic reliefs that tax laws grant to compliant taxpayers,” he added.
Reverend Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, the Commissioner–General of GRA, said the launch formed part of the activities by the Authority to commemorate this year’s Customer Service Week.
He said it portrayed their dual responsibility in ensuring that the revenue was mobilised for the development of the nation.
He said the Charters would challenge them to do more in service to their customers, while creating awareness among staff and taxpayers on the importance of excellent service delivery and to encourage staff to adopt best practices in their dealings with both internal and external customers.
The Commissioner-General said “we do admit that we have not attained perfection, but we certainly have made and continue to make strides towards attaining excellent service delivery.”
He said in line with their desire to improve on their interaction with taxpayers thereby making it seamless to transact business with us, GRA has introduced several new initiatives in the recent past.
These are the Cashless Policy which enables taxpayers to file their returns and pay their taxes online and the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) which has drastically reduced the turnaround time at the ports.
He said the Authority was still not resting on its oars, several new initiatives would be introduced in the coming weeks all aimed at simplifying our processes and procedures.
These include Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate by the Domestic Tax Revenue Division for taxpayers, Electronic Invoicing of VAT and Electronic Auction.
He said the Authority had in recent times made intentional efforts at improving on their service delivery and to carve a niche as one of the best public sector institutions when it comes to service delivery.
GNA