Rev. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah
AN INEXPERIENCED firm is set to be awarded the Integrated Tax Application System (ITAS) contract of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), despite pricing higher than other competitors.
Sources within the GRA have told DAILY GUIDE that the development is causing uneasy calm at the domestic revenue mobilisation institution, with questions being raised about the capacity of the company, which is yet to be announced.
It is understandable that the company, which has allegedly no track record, has been selected out of 12 shortlisted companies by the GRA to receive the ITAS contract, and there are fears this will cause the country to lose millions of Ghana cedis.
So far, the concerns raised have delayed the announcement of the selected bidder, which was expected to be within 150 days after the evaluation process.
The development of ITAS, according to GRA, will help the authority achieve its goals on revenue mobilisation.
It is to help the authority identify and block all the tax loopholes within the government and the public administration as part of the GRA’s primary goal to increase revenue generation.
Per ITAS project, the system will help to capture a wider tax bracket and make it extremely impossible for anybody or company to escape the tax system, by fishing out any organisation or individuals that may attempt to evade taxes.
Bidding for the five-year contract was opened in January 2022 and closed on February 25, 2022.
In June last year, the 12 shortlisted companies were assessed based on GRA’s evaluation which included experience in deployment, technical solutions, local content among others.
And the push back from the GRA to award the contract to the relatively inexperienced company has caused the delay in the announcement, compelling GRA officials to ask for more time to complete the process of awarding the contract.
The announcement of the ITAS contract is expected to be done before the end of February 2023, this paper gathered.