The GeGov Project, an electronic platform designed to automate Business Registration and Tax Administration at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) will alleviate the plight of people who want to register businesses but have to endure several bottlenecks embedded in the current manual system.
Mr Alwin Hoegerle, who was speaking to Myjoyonline.com, explained that the GeGov Project which was launched Thursday at the British Council in Accra, “will have the ability to do online registration which will cut down basically the time needed to less than a day to get your company up and running.”
According to him, GeGov which is a Public-Private partnership between the Government and GCNet, holds the key to providing the taxpayer and the citizenry at large, an easier, a more just and transparent method of paying taxes and also seeing what has happened to the taxes.
The government on the hand, he said, “Will be able to have a more equitable tax administration which is more efficient, which means there will be more funds available for the development agenda for the country.”
The automated system, he explained, will eliminate the manual system and the side-stepping currently in place at agencies such as the income tax department. He said the project has so far trained over 2,000 Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) staff in computer literacy and the application of the new system.
The Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), George Blankson also told Myjoyonline.com that although there are bound to be challenges, the benefits of this new system far outweigh the challenges.
The system, the GRA Commissioner explained, will help analyze taxpayer information, detect discrepancies and also get them to rectify anomalies including tax evasions and under-declaration of taxes in their databases.
The project is expected to be fully operational nationwide by the middle of 2012 and is currently in modular phases involving 11 sites, selected from 122 sites. It is starting with the implementation of the registration module in September.
Other modules will process tax returns and payments and process reports from the field.
From September, all new organizations and taxpayers will be required to register through the new system while existing customers of GRA and RGD will be expected to re-register.
GRA customers will receive new Registration Numbers, Certification of Incorporation/Registration and Certificates to Commence Business if applicable.
The launch Thursday was also attended by Mrs Jemima Oware, Chief State Attorney, Registrar-General’s Department; Mrs. Veronica Boateng from the National Information Technology Agency of the Ministry of Communication, personnel from some of the revenue agencies and the press.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ernest Dela Aglanu
Quelle/Source: Myjoyonline, 26.08.2011
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