Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Friday, July 4, 2014
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says
it is initiating a court process to collect about GH¢6.1million as tax on GH¢8.3million
given to Africa Automobile Limited (AAL) as judgement debt in 2010.
Acting Assistant Commissioner in Charge
of Policy & Programmes, Edward Gyamerah appearing before the Commission of
Enquiry investigating the payment of judgement debts yesterday said once AAL
had confirmed that it had received GH¢8.3million from the government, the revenue
authorities will force the company to pay tax with penalty.
AAL
Services
AAL reportedly provided services as well
as supplied spare parts to 17 MDAs from 1994/95 to 2010 but the government
failed to pay for them and that compelled them to go to court.
Unfortunately, when AAL filed the suit
against the government, the Attorney General did not contest the matter
compelling the Commercial Court to enter a default judgement in favour of the
claimant.
Documents available to the commission
indicated that the debts owed by the government to AAL stood at GH¢145,917.76
but it ballooned to GH¢8.3million in 2010 due to compound interest on the debt.
Furthermore, in the 2006 audited report
of the company, the amount owed by all AAL debtors including the Ministries, Departments
and Agencies (MDAs) stood at GH¢96,823.51 but when the company sued in 2006
they claimed that the total debt owed by the MMDAs was GH¢145,917.76.
AAL
Testimony
On Wednesday when Mohammed Hijaazi,
Executive Chairman and Managing Director of AAL appeared before the commission,
he confirmed that AAL had indeed been paid GH¢ 8.3million as judgement debt and
justified the payments.
When Counsel for the commission, Dometi
Kofi Sorkpor then asked Mr. Hijaazi whether he paid GH¢6.1million as tax on the
GH¢ 8.3million collected as indicated by the GRA, the witness said he did not
intend to pay.
“The interest was a loss that the
creditor suffered at the hands of the MDAs and I would not declare that as a profit.
I have not and I would not. It was a loss and not profit.”
When counsel asked him whether AAL sued
for loss of business he said “No, I haven’t. In fact you have reminded me now
and I am going to do that.”
“For 15 years, we have been reminding
the MDAs of their contractual obligation but they did not but here I am today
trying to make my claims and I am being branded a criminal,” Mr. Hijazi
lamented.
GRA
steps in
In the unfolding event, the GRA
representative told Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau that AAL did not
disclose the payment of GH¢8.3million to the commissioner of revenues and the
authority detected it after they appeared before the Public Accounts Committee
(PAC).
He said the interest that accumulated to
GH¢8.3million was ‘income earned’, adding “we captured interest at the rate of
25% and penalty at the rate of 200% therefore the GH¢6.174million is tax
liability owned.”
“The commissioner uses his discretion to
impose the penalty and in this case he has put it at 200% and we will use due
process to retrieve the amount.”
Ghana
Refugee Board
Earlier, the Ghana Refugee Board
Chairman, Ken Dzirasah testified in the case of WO1 (Rtd) Agyei Boadi who is
claiming compensation for the government’s acquisition of land on which the
Liberian Refugees were hosted at Buduburam in the Central region.
Mr. Dzirasah said even though the matter
was filed in court in 2004, it was not until 2013 that the board received a
terms f settlement document from the Attorney General for their input and he
asked the AG to proceed cautiously because he had seen a judgement in 1980 in
which some trustees of the same land had been given judgement by a court.
“To avoid double judgement debt, we drew
the attention of the AG through the state attorney handling the case but we had
unpleasant conversation on the telephone about my caution,” the experienced
politician told the commission.
“The only role that the Refugee Board
played in the matter was to draw the attention of the AG to the fact that there
could be other possible claimants but the last time I heard I was being accused
of stalling the process. It was wrong for the conclusion to be drawn that I had
stalled the payment.”
“We are not in principle objecting to
the payment of compensation per se. We are only asking that due diligence be
observed.”
WO1 Agyei Boadi who wants compensation
for the take-over farmlands and plots with buildings, the first valuation was
done at GH¢119,760 and in the last was valued at GH¢92,373.
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