Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah
Board of the Covid-19 Trust Fund is arranging to have the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) grant some form of tax relief to organizations and individuals who donate to the fund.
Chairperson of the fund and former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, dropped the hint yesterday when they handed over some Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to some selected health institutions and associations in the Greater Accra Region.
“We are also happy to announce that the GRA has confirmed that tax reliefs will be available to donors who make donations to the Covid-19 National Trust Fund when filing their tax returns,” she said.
That, she said would be subject to fulfilling requirements that the GRA had set out in its recently published guidelines for the implementation of the tax incentives in support of tax payers against the pandemic.
So far, she indicated that the fund had received about GH¢50million from donors and that they had almost completed internal procurement systems in conformity with the requirements of the Public Procurement Act, which would begin the utilization of the monies received.
The fund has now introduced a short code *887*100#, that would allow the citizenry to donate any amount to support the fight against the dreaded coronavirus pandemic in the country and thus asked those who for some reason may not be able to go to the jubilee House to make their donations to do so through the short code.
Institutions and associations who benefited from yesterday’s donation from the Covid-19 Trust Fund included the Pediatric Oncology Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Nutrition Rehab Center of the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital and the El Wak Isolation Center of the 37 Military Hospital.
The rest are Nii Odoi Kwao family from Osu, the Ark Foundation Ghana and the Association of Magistrates and Judges.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent