New GRA Boss Revives Shady IPMC/Tata Deal Amisshadai Cancelled Leading to His Push Out
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) under the recently appointed Commissioner-General, Julie Essiam has revived moves to handover Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization to an Indian company after the former Commissioner General, Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah had cancelled the whole process in January 2024 for lack of funds.
Unimpeachable reports indicate that the former CG was removed and replaced with the current one, Julie Essiam mainly because he stood in the way of that deal when he realized it was not in the national interest. But the government, through some persons at the finance ministry and with the help of their new puppet at GRA, are bent on getting the deal through to ensure that by 2025, the Indian company, Tata Consulting Services, and its Indian-Ghanaian partner, IPMC will take over domestic tax mobilization in the country.
Take note, that in 2025, this government will be out of power, no matter which political party wins the 2024 elections. So, they are working to close an anti-local content deal that will take effect when another government is in power.
Way back January 3, 2024, Dr. Owusu-Amoah wrote to IPMC/Tata informing them that the whole process to award a contract for the building of an Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) had been CANCELLED because of budgetary cuts.
In the run for the deal, he wrote a letter to all 12 companies telling them the deal was off due to lack of funds.
Then just a month later, in September 2023, the same former CG, wrote exclusively to IPMC/Tata and asked them to submit their technical and financial proposal for the same contract. Clearly, the CG was operating under the whims and caprices of persons in government with vested interest on that occasion.
But when we reached out to GRA staff and Board members, including the former CG and Board Chair, they paid heed to the voice of reason and put the brakes on the whole process, which later culminated in the January 3, 2024 letter, eventually leading to the removal of the former CG and dissolution of the Board.
Techfocus24 did a very detailed article about how this whole process began and how it finally led to the replacement of the 62-year-old former CG, with a 61-year-old woman under very strange circumstances including the complete dissolution of the entire GRA board.
Parliament must intervene
As things stand now, if Parliament does not intervene, Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization and all the critical national data it comes with, will go into the hands of an Indian company that has been kicked out of at least three other African countries.
If the deal goes through under the watch of this outgoing government, and the new government decides to cancel it, the Ghanaian taxpayer will end up paying huge judgement debt to that Indian company. This is exactly what former GRA Board Chair, Dr. Oteng Gyasi alluded to when he said procurement has become the main conduit for corrupt government officials and their cronies in the private sector to loot the national purse.
Source:Techfocus24
