By Mercy Darko
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has officially launched the Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement, RACE in Accra. The initiative is expected to build a robust framework to expand domestic revenue mobilization with emphasis on compliance and enforcement nationwide.
Vice President Bawumia said over the years’ government had initiated policies which have placed Ghana on the right footing for development, adding that RACE which is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Finance, National Security and the Ghana Revenue Authority, GRA would ensure high tax compliance and increase the revenue-to-GDP ratio.
The Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement, RACE would enable the system to examine and plug dozens of actual or potential leakages, instead of correcting errors after they have occurred. The focus of Race therefore is to identify and eliminate loopholes in revenue mobilization in areas such as petroleum bunkering, gold and minerals export, port operations, transit goods, warehousing, border controls and free zones operations.
Vice President Bawumia said the RACE initiative will allow stakeholders to reset resources mobilization in public finance even as Covid 19 lingers. He noted that RACE is another building block that would support other initiatives to improve revenue mobilization and re-enforcing the culture of compliance.
The Vice President said with the process of making the Ghana Card TIN numbers, there has been a tremendous improvement in eligible taxpayers. He expressed optimism that RACE would go a long way to eliminate leakages in revenue collection.
Deputy Minister of Finance in-charge of Revenue, Abena Osei Asare said the government will confront revenue leakages head-on and at the same time widen the tax net. She stressed that the mobilization of revenue will help the government to undertake policies and programmes that would benefit everyone.
The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev. Ammisshaddai Owusu- Amoah said the Authority is on course to achieve revenue targets for 2021. He called for collaboration from stakeholders in plugging the loopholes, so as to rake in more revenue for development.
