….Hiring controversial Indian company for Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has revived a contentious deal with Indian company Tata Consulting Services and its Ghanaian partner, IPMC, despite previous cancellations due to budgetary constraints.
The deal, which aims to hand over Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization to the Indian company, has raised concerns among GRA officials and former board members, including the then Board Chairman, Dr Anthony Oteng Gyasi.
The previous Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah, 62, had cancelled the deal in January 2024, citing lack of funds.
However, the new Commissioner-General, Julie Essiam, 61, revived it days after taking over the institution, and reports are that, it has been sent to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for approval.
The Tata/IPMC Consulting Services deal, has been met with opposition from GRA officials and former board members, who argue that the current vendor, Axon Information Systems, is doing a satisfactory job and meets local content requirements.
Additionally, the Central Tender Review Committee (CTRC) had previously disqualified IPMC/Tata from the bidding process due to their failure to meet GRA’s requirements on deployment experience and local content.
Despite these concerns, the deal is moving forward earnestly, with IPMC/Tata’s technical and financial proposal being considered under sole sourcing by the new GRA management, raises further questions about its transparency, particularly given the previous cancellation and the change in leadership at GRA.
The IPMC/Tata transaction suffered a stillbirth under the former GRA boss, who cancelled it midway, saying GRA had no funds to execute the transaction.
Despite several attempts to force Rev. Dr Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah, to see the transaction through, he remained stubborn to the suggestion, insisting that the Ghanaian company; Axon Information Systems, also known as Ghana Integrated Tax Management and Information Systems (GITMIS) remains in charge, but all that tough stand has whittled down with his departure and the departure of GRA board chairman, Dr Oteng Gyasi.
The Indian company, is being considered under sole sourcing by the new management of GRA led by its new Commissioner-General, Julie Essiam.
Interestingly, there had not been any adverse findings against the GITMIS
An online publication Techfocus24, has reported the government, through some persons at the finance ministry and GRA management, are bent on getting the deal through to ensure that by 2025, the Indian company, Tata Consulting Services, and its Indian-Ghanaian partner, IPMC, will take over domestic tax mobilization in the country.
In 2025, this Akufo-Addo government, will be out of power, no matter which political party wins the 2024 elections. The move to shutdown local content deal that will take effect when another government is in power, is raising questions at various levels of the GRA.
Back on January 3, 2024, Dr Owusu-Amoah, wrote to IPMC/Tata informing them that the whole process to award a contract for the building of an Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) had been cancelled because of budgetary cuts.
Techfocus24, said its investigations into the whole deal revealed that some key people at GRA, opposed the moves to take the contract from a very competent Ghanaian company called Axon Information Systems – GITMIS, having been lauded for helping GRA far exceed revenue targets for three years running.
Dr Owusu-Amoah’s removal from office on age grounds, came together with the complete dissolution of the GRA Board, then led by Dr Oteng Gyasi, who together with his board members, were also opposed to the deal.
Several officials at GRA and recently past board members passed the buck to the new GRA boss, saying she is the only one who knows what she is doing.
It would also appear that, the alleged boastful claims by officials of IPMC/Tata that GRA cannot stop them from getting the contract may be true after all; and the person at the centre of this questionable deal, is the IPMC CEO, Amar Deep – an Indian man who Ghana has gifted a soft-landing many years ago.
The IPMC/Tata’s technical and financial proposal for the contract, has been sent to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for approval, to clear the way for them to start installing their equipment on GRA’s systems in preparation for a takeover from Axon by 2025.
This is despite several worrying facts, including reports that the Central Tender Review Committee (CTRC) disqualified IPMC/Tata from getting the contract because IPMC/Tata, among other things, failed to meet up to 80percent of GRA’s requirements on deployment experience and also failed the 30percent local content test.
It has been reported that, evidence gathered by top officials of GRA from Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia and Uganda, indicates that Tata’s ITAx system is very problematic on several levels.
The record is there to show that the current vendor – Axon, which is a wholly-Ghanaian-owned company, is doing a great job by all standards, and GRA officials, have testified that Axon’s Ghana Integrated Tax Management and Information System (GITMIS) is at par with any ITAS in the world.
Before their abrupt dissolution, the board of GRA, were opposed to the moves to award the contract to IPMC/Tata.
The online publication, says it is reliably informed that the former Commissioner General wrote to the presidency and Finance Ministry and stated his objection to the deal with clear reasons.
Rev Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, also wrote to IPMC/Tata in January, informing them that the deal had been cancelled due to lack of funds. But that was not the first time the former GRA boss wrote a letter to say the process had been cancelled.
Way back in August 2023, when some 12 entities were in the run for the deal, he wrote a letter to all 12 companies telling them the deal was off due to lack of funds.
Then just a month later, in September 2023, the same former Commissioner-General, wrote exclusively to IPMC/Tata and asked them to submit their technical and financial proposal for the same contract. The Commissioner General was operating under the whims and caprices of persons in government with vested interest on that occasion.
But when Techfocus24 reached out to GRA staff and Board members, including the former CG and Board Chair, they paid heed to the voice of reason and put the brakes on the whole process, which later culminated in the January 3, 2024 letter, eventually leading to the removal of the former CG and the dissolution of the Board.
Techfocus24, did a very detailed article about how this whole process began and how it finally led to the replacement of the 62-year-old former CG, with a 61-year-old woman under very strange circumstances, including the complete dissolution of the entire GRA board.
As things stand now, if Parliament does not intervene, Ghana’s domestic tax mobilization and all the critical national data it comes with, will go into the hands of an Indian company that has been kicked out of at least three other African countries.
If the deal goes through under the watch of this outgoing government, and the new government decides to cancel it, the Ghanaian taxpayer, will end up paying a huge judgment debt to the Indian company.
