Journalist and media management expert, who is also a sympathizer of the NDC, Graham Kofi Baldwin has hinted that ‘corrupt and rogue’ customs officers on the frontiers of Ghana shall be removed, and nothing can change that. According to him, ‘evidence abounds of corruption within the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) with taxes going into private pockets under this useless Akufo Addo Bawumia government.’.
He maintains that a cartel that continues to steal taxes collected on behalf of the state shall no longer exist after January 7, 2025. ‘There is a heavy load on the shoulders of the incoming government considering the fact that the current administration has run empty the national kitty’ and added that it will become necessary for measures to be put in place in ensuring taxes collected are properly accounted for.
He warned that the young people of Ghana are angry, and majorly, what they seek moving forward is accountability. In January 2021, the young media practitioner threatened to drag the Ghana Revenue Authority to court over what was then described as ‘the implementation of a dangerous tax policy’ introduced in 2019. He exposed that the said policy introduced by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority was rather making some individuals rich without any benefit to the state.
The policy, according to him, was positioned such that it was benefiting some individuals who claimed to be financiers of the New Patriotic Party, the NPP. He says it was also benefiting some customs personnel who are politically positioned especially along the Eastern corridor area. ‘This diverted traffic from the Tema and Takoradi ports because there was huge under declaration and tax monies stolen especially along the Eastern frontiers,’ he revealed.
Despite calls then by tax experts and some concerned Ghanaians for the said policy to be scrapped, where a minimum flat rate of tax is paid over all categories of goods imported through the said corridor, the GRA and for that matter the government were all adamant.
However, when further actions were taken including threats of legal action by the young media practitioner, in June 2021, the GRA finally reversed the said policy. What the reversal of the tax policy then means is that the right amount of taxes would be paid on all goods that enter the country through the corridor for national development.
Meanwhile, he says he shall pick point those rogue and corrupt officers for action to be taken by the new government and has vowed to ensure that, as an individual and a Ghanaian, he shall play his part to ensure accountability from especially Ghana’s tax collectors.
‘Go to Koforidua and see…there is an officer currently within the national tax force of Customs Division of the GRA who is so corrupt that, the properties he has made there and the number of cars parked in his house in Koforidua will make you more angry as a Ghanaian…..a custom officer with a cargo clearing agency, diverting business to his own company meanwhile he is same person who determines how much is paid over those cargos’ he revealed with anger to the media in Accra over the weekend.
He concluded that all hands must be brought on deck to clean the system of corruption in ensuring enough revenue is collected and that those revenues must no longer fall into private pockets under the new administration.
Source: Alhaji Umarh
