Head of Research and Communications at the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Derek Laryea, has refuted allegations by Communications and Digitalisation Minister-designate, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, that telcos in the country are under-stating revenues to government to avoid tax charges.
The Chamber’s comments comes after the Communications and Digitalisaion Minister-designate, used the claim as justification for government’s contract with KelniGvG during her vetting in Parliament on Monday, February 15.
This would not be the first time the Minister-designate has made such comments as she made similar comments in Parliament last year
“If I have to do it all over again, I would. Earlier I started talking about all the benefits that this country has got from the KelniGvG deal and I didn’t even go through half of it. In addition to the monthly savings that this platform provides, the broad management components have from the inception date raked in tax savings of Ghs 565.7 million.”
“Over the life of the contract, the common platform is expected to deliver tax savings of approximately Ghs 800 million,” she noted.
Reacting to Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful’s assertion, Derek Laryea said there is no valid basis for the revenue under-statement allegation against telcos in the country.
“Last year, we highlighted that the mobile industry is deeply concerned about the continuous recurrence of these claims, and the fact that standard audit principles and practices that characterize our members dealings with Regulators continue to be breached. I heard from the discussion yesterday that even when our customers buy data with mobile money, we charge them, make a profit and government does not get its due but that’s not true. In 2019, our members paid almost Ghs 30 million as taxes from the mobile money service. We have requested from GRA to furnish us with the findings that points to our members under-declaring revenue over a year now and we will continue to request for this report,” Mr Laryea stated.
“Revenue Growth is key for all our members, Indeed you want to declare the right kind of revenue because that assures key shareholders and the investor community that your business is growing or has prospect to grow. Therefore, there should be no logical cause or reason for our members to under-declare revenue. We are very concerned about this development and we entreat Government to engage with the industry on such serious reputational issues before conclusions are drawn to the general public,” he added.
According to a recent report findings from a Total Tax Contribution (TTC) survey by the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, the sector’s total taxes and payments to government amounted to over Ghs 3.2 billion in 2019.
This figure represents approximately 9 percent of Ghana’s annual total tax revenue earnings.
Key highlights from the study shows Communication Service Tax (CST) was Ghs 414 million, Value Added Tax (VAT) was Ghs 480 million, Corporate Income Tax (CIT) stood at Ghs 832 million, Withholding Tax (WHT) was Ghs 415 million, Import Duties stood at Ghs 210 million and National Fiscal Stabilization Levy (NFSL) cost the members Ghs 71 million.
