NCA must come clean on GRA/Subah scandal – Casely-Hayford

A financial analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford is challenging the National Communication Authority (NCA) to disclose the role it played in the emerging GRA/Subah InfoSolutions scandal.

Subah Infosolutions was contracted by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in 2010 to provide telecom traffic monitoring services for the Tax Agency.

Reports indicate that the GRA paid GHC144 million from the GRA, mostly in monthly instalments.

Even though GRA has disputed the amount of money it paid Subah Infosolutions, available evidence shows that the company did absolutely no work for the to merit the monies it received from the tax agency.

The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) on Monday told journalists that the contract with Subah was awarded with the consent of the NCA and that the telecom operators have been cooperating with Subah.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Sydney Casely-Hayford said the GRA press conference raised more questions than answers.

“What Mr Blankson has said has so much left out. It is now very difficult to even understand what the contract was really all about.”

The Ministry of Finance earlier indicated in a statement that in May 2013, the Minister of Finance “directed the Tax Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance and the GRA to halt payments to Subah Infosolutions LTD.”

But in a rebuttal Mr Hayford noted that there was no certainty as to whether the payments were indeed halted by the GRA or not.

“We are not sure whether these so-called payments that the Ministry of Finance said ‘halt and don’t pay anymore more’ can be interpreted as the Ministry of Finance saying don’t pay from the Ministry of Finance particular account ,pay from your own refund accounts and therefore there was actually no real stoppage of the contract in its strict sense in May but there was a continuity but through another account we don’t know about it.”

According to him, “If the GRA has realised that the Telcos were under declaring their revenues, and therefore they were underpaying their taxes, what did it do to deal with the issue”

The NCA has meanwhile refused to answer calls on the issue.

By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana