GRA: Board and Management fall on their own daggers over massaged figures

Ghana’s Revenue collection outfit, Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), is on raging fire over some ugly happenings.

The Board and Management of the GRA have fallen on their own daggers for massaging figures in connection with revenue generation for 2019.

The workers went out to demand for payment of 15% bonus to staff after the Board Chairman of the GRA, Professor Stephen Adei, had gone public that the revenue target for 2019 was achieved.

After the workers’ demand of the 15%, the GRA Board and Management turned round to claim that the earlier assertion by the Board Chairman was not right.

However, the Board and Management have not been able to go public on the inability to meet the revenue target, instead the bonuses of the staff were what they wanted to swerve them on.

But the Organised Labour has forced management to cough up 10% for the GRA workers instead of the 15% they were demanding.

The workers are suspicious that management would not pay the remaining five percent and that is creating huge tension at the GRA.

There is also disagreement on how the leadership of the Organised Labour of the GRA is being forced to render an apology to the Board and Management over the expose that the GRA did not achieve its revenue target for 2019.

Sources within the GRA have it that management was not comfortable with the payment of the 15% bonus because the GRA was going to dole out over GHC60million from its already empty coffers.

It is estimated that the GRA has more than 7,000 workers.

Even the payment of the 10% was a huge problem, as the date that management promised to pay was pushed forward to another day.

The 10% bonus to staff was to have been paid on April 21, 2020, as agreed, but it was paid a day after the agreed date.

According to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between GRA Management and Organized Labour of GRA, based on a meeting held on April 15, 2020, the parties also agreed that they will meet in the course of the year to determine the payment of an additional five percent of Annual Basic Salary and that the said meeting could be triggered by either the Union or Management.

The Inquisitor was informed that the workers are not in support of that particular agreement and have vowed to pursue management for the remaining five percent of their bonus,

In that MoU, it was agreed that the General Secretary of the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) rendered an unqualified apology to both the Board and Management of the GRA, and subsequently retracted portions of the Union letter that appear to attack the persons of the Board Chair and the Commissioner-General.

But the workers are saying that forcing for an apology was not right because the contents of the Union’s letter were not false.

Meanwhile, the GRA workers are accusing the Board Chairman of running an illegitimate board.

According to the workers, after what was widely seen as forced resignation of two board members, the chairman has not deemed it fit to ask for replacement.

Madam Juliana Addo-Yobo and Major (Rtd) Ablorh Quarcoo resigned from the GRA Board last year.

It was later discovered that the two were actually forced to resign at the request of certain huge forces who wanted new faces on the board.

The workers have vowed that they will press for the two board members who resigned to be replaced because the current situation was illegal.  

How GRA Workers Exposed Revenue Target Lies

Aggrieved staff of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is asking their management to confess to the public that GRA did not meet its 2019 annual set target.
GRA Board Chairman, Prof. Stephen Adei, in an interview, had stated that the state revenue mobilizing agency exceeded its target for 2019, a claim that was widely publicized and celebrated by the Authority.
But the workers are threatening to expose the management over what they described as insincerity in announcing the said target.

“How can the Board Chairman with your support, tell the whole world that GRA has met its 2019 annual target, supported this claim with empirical figures and facts, received all the commendations thereafter, had a Thanksgiving Service to honour God both in Accra and Kumasi. Can GRA go back to the media and tell the whole world that it lied on the issue of achieving the 2019 annual target?” They wrote.

Meanwhile, in a memo signed by the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority to its Workers Union over the rate for payment of 2019 bonus, the Acting Commissioner General Rev.

Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, wrote;
“The World over, bonuses are paid on profits and/or the achievement of targets. Since the original target set by the Ministry of Finance was not achieved, staff cannot make a claim for 15% of the annual basic salary. The Board in consideration of what was achieved therefore allocated 10% as a bonus”

In their written response to the Commissioner-General, they find it unfair how they have been denied access to their full bonuses because the target was not met.

They are worried about the fact that they are unable to access 15% of the annual basic salary because the original target set by the Ministry of Finance was not achieved.

“After all the celebration you come back a few months later (because of the 15% bonus payment to staff) to mean otherwise?” They asked, in a statement copied to the media.

Read the full statements below:

Source: The Inquisitor