GRA Boss Julie Essiam resigns ahead of sack

The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Julie Essiam, has tendered in her resignation to the president’s office through the minister-designate for Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson.

This comes a day ahead of her planned sack which falls tomorrow, Techfocus24 has learnt.

Former President Akufo-Addo appointed Julie Essiam Commissioner-General of the GRA on 24 March 2024. Until her appointment, she was responsible for the GRA’s Support Services Division.

She came in to replace Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu Amoah who went past the retirement age by two years – 62 – and was rocked with a number of scandals, including the stinking SML scandal, which he was said to have given prior warnings about but the government, led by Ken Ofori-Atta did not listen.

Julie Essiam herself took office at a reported age of 61, which was a year past the retirement age. But former GRA Board Chairman, Prof. Emeritus Stephen Adei alleged that Julie Essiam was possibly 64 years old when she was appointed CG.

Her resignation is contained in a letter dated Monday, 20 January 2025, addressed to the President of the Republic and copied to the Vice President, Chief of Staff, the Minister of Finance Designate, and the Secretary to the President.

In that letter, she claimed that together with her team at GRA, “we have achieved remarkable successes, especially in the area of revenue collection, and consistently exceeded our monthly revenue targets during my tenure as the C-G. I am proud of what this team has accomplished for our dear nation.”

“Specifically, I leave behind a revenue performance of GHe152.977 billion, against a target of GHc145.998 billion for the 2024 fiscal year. This represents exceeding our annual target by GH₵6.978 billion, an increase of 4.8%. With this performance the GRA is now operating at a Tax to GDP Ratio of 17.0%, exceeding the target of 16.1%. Overall, this achievement represents a nominal growth of 35.3% over the 2023 performance.

What Julie Essiam failed to admit was that her achievement in domestic revenue mobilization was on the back for a locally developed ITAS (integrated tax administration system) called the Ghana Integrated Tax Management and Information System (GITMIS) from Axon Information Systems.

In spite of the significant contribution of GITMIS to the achievements of GRA before and during the tenure of Julie Essiam, one of her first actions, when she took office, was to sign an ITAS contract with an Indian company called Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), without ministerial, parliamentary and board approvals.

A review of that contract revealed very damning issues, including the fact that there is a termination clause that shortchanges Ghana in favor of TCS even though Ghana is paying fully for the contract. Plus, TCS has the right to sell/transfer the contract to whoever they choose without recourse to GRA. Again, TCS stands to get up $5 million every year from Ghana in management and support services fees.

Julie Essiam has also been fingered for possibly committing perjury before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) when she claimed Axon Information Systems, came fourth in a competitive bidding process towards the award of the ITAS contract to TCS from India.

Meanwhile, documents available indicate there were only three shortlisted entities and that included Axon, and Axon’s financial proposal was adjudged the best. So Julie Essiam is still yet prove how our of three entities, the one with the best financial proposal came fourth and not even third.

Again, there are a number of contracts she also awarded not long before the December 2024 elections. Some of those contracts may be subjects of a probe soon.

Source: techfocus24.com