The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has officially petitioned the receiver of several defunct financial institutions to recover approximately GHȼ91 million in outstanding taxes.
This disclosure was made by Mr. Edward Apenteng Gyamerah, the Commissioner in charge of the Domestic Tax and Revenue Division, during a hearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday. The funds represent tax obligations that remained unpaid following the Bank of Ghana’s 2017 “banking sector clean-up,” which saw the revocation of licenses for over 300 financial institutions.
The GRA maintains that under existing liquidation laws, the state holds the “first right” to receive payments from any recovered assets before other creditors are settled. Despite multiple written demands sent to the appointed receiver, the tax authority confirmed that it has yet to receive the owed revenue.
The impasse has drawn criticism from members of the committee, including MP Kofi Adams, who argued that the government’s inability to collect existing high-value tax arrears undermines the justification for introducing new taxes on the public.
The Public Accounts Committee has requested copies of all correspondence between the GRA and the receiver to determine the cause of the delay. This recovery effort is part of a broader push by the GRA to close the revenue gap by targeting large-scale corporate arrears, particularly from entities currently undergoing liquidation or debt restructuring.
