Ghana, Dutch Tax and Customs authorities exchange knowledge

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, TEMA Officers from the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority inTema have undergone a a week training on Valuation, Classification and Transfer Pricing to improve the efficiency and contribute to broadening the revenue base of the country. The GRA in collaboration with the Kingdom of Netherlands and the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration organized the programme. Addressing the closing session, the GRA Commissioner-General, Mr. George Blankson, congratulated the trainees for embracing the opportunity to acquire new valuation and classification skills and urged them to effectively use the knowledge acquired for the tasks ahead of them. He said the sustainability of Ghana’s development efforts depends on the ability of the GRA to collect enough revenue for the government to invest in strategic areas of the economy. “If these developments are to be sustained, the GRA must maintain its roles by ensuring that revenue flows into government chess adequately to fund the development of the country”, Mr Blankson said He noted that one major challenge of GRA is how to strike the right balance between revenue mobilization and tax reforms and stressed the need to continue with the reform efforts of the Ghana tax system which started in 2010. Mr Blankson also lauded the collaboration and partnership with the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration which he described as having the potential of quickening the modernization process. “Valuation and Classification are major determinants of the amount of revenue we can collect on imports. Having gone through this capacity training programme, I hope productivity will be visible and lead to an improvement in the efficiency of the officers”, he said. Present was Dutch Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms Lilliane Ploumen. She also underscored the fact that customs and taxation reforms are important to emerging economies because it contribute to broadening the revenue base. She said developing countries annually lose out on billions of Euros through issues such as tax evasion by multinational companies, transfer pricing issues and under invoicing. She expressed the hope that the collaboration between the Dutch and Ghanaian tax and customs authorities will better equip the GRA to deal with these kinds of complex issues. “Ghana stands to gain a lot from trade between the two countries and this can be achieved by reducing the clearing procedures at the ports”, she said. The Commissioner of Customs, Mr Wallace Akandor said the officers are particularly happy to have been beneficiaries of such a training programme. While applauding the gesture, he called for further resourcing and retooling of the service with appropriate systems to fully utilize the knowledge and techniques acquired at the training. Earlier, Mrs. Lillian Ploumen, the Dutch Minister toured the offices of the Customs Division of the GRA at the Tema port to fraternize herself with their operations. She admonished the service to continue with their better customs and tax system since it is one of the solutions to the economic crisis is currently facing. “A good customs system is transparent as quick as possible and also as thorough and precise and we hope to continue working together with Ghana in the coming years to consolidate our partnership”, she said. -End- Writer’s email: Benjamin.glover@graphic.com.gh