Board Chairman of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Prof. Stephen Adei, has asked staff and stakeholders of the Authority to eschew corrupt practices in their line of work.
Speaking at a thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate the achievement of the Authority in meeting its 2019 revenue target of GHS43 billion, he urged the staff to view their position as a position of service, and not as an avenue to loot and create wealth for themselves as their actions can negatively affect national development.
“We know that we cannot police everybody, but when we catch you we won’t allow you to stay at your position to be investigated. You will be indicted at once. You will be at home, when you are exonerated you will then have all your rights restored. But we won’t allow you stay at a position where we suspect you are going to continue your actions. I believe that when we all work together to bring more money into the coffers of the GRA then the more workers can get to enjoy.”
Also speaking at the event, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, said government will this review the whole tax system to ensure efficiency.
He said this will be done to create a more reliable system for the Ghana Revenue Authority to collect the necessary taxes for national development.
He urged the Authority to work hard to meet its 2020 revenue target.
Digitization of economy has helped government’s corruption fight – Bawumia
Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has said the digitization of the economy has helped in the fight against corruption.
“We will talk about the digital economy. We have embarked on a major digitization exercise and that exercise is already yielding fruits and I think that when we all come together, Ghana will be a different country as far as digitization is concerned. One area where digitization has really helped is the fight against corruption. It has really helped…” the Vice President said at the opening ceremony of the Ghana-EU political dialogue in Accra.
The Ports, Lands Commission, Ministry of Tourism and the Passport Office, are a few state agencies that have migrated to digital platforms to enhance efficiency.
The Vice President said corruption is non-existent at these agencies due to digitization.
“If you go to the ports today, we have curbed corruption at the ports. If you go to DVLA we have curbed corruption because of digitization. NHIS is the same in terms of digitizing the hospitals so it is a very very important aspect of the fight against corruption.”
“We have implemented the e-justice programme at the court. We have automated the court so the issue of missing dockets that used to be a problem has been addressed.”
The Vice President also indicated that the government is putting in place “a lot of policies to help deprived communities.”
Many say government’s digitization efforts had led to reforms at various agencies.
The introduction of the technology at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority has gradually eliminated the ‘’goro boys’’ which was formerly a problem.
Government says it will introduce more reforms to push its digitization agenda.