Revenue mobilization contract can go to Indian company based on corruption – Prof.  Stephen Addai

Former Board Chairman of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Professor Emeritus Stephen Adei says the contract for domestic tax mobilization in Ghana can only go to an India Company based on corruption.

Prof. Addai questioned why the contract should go to a foreign company when there are Ghanaian-owned companies that do the job.

He described the deal as “immoral, unpatriotic and evil” and urged the government to stop it, saying, “you cannot and should not hand over our domestic tax mobilization to an Indian company when all the evidence from the competitive bidding process shows that a Ghanaian company came on top”.

“The contract can only go to the Indian company on the basis of corruption and moral depravity and I think that no Ghanaian worth his or her name should support this,” he quipped.

Prof. Adei’s strong declaration comes in the wake of reports that the Commissioner General of GRA, Julie Essiam, has ignored the board, defied all due process, and unilaterally willed Ghana’s domestic revenue mobilization to TCS from India, and its Indian-owned-Ghana-based partner, IPMC.

In fact, Julie Essiam is said to have traveled to India in the company of the Head of Procurement at GRA, Daniel Foli, and signed the contract with TCS, giving them the green light to come take over domestic tax mobilization in Ghana from 2026.

This was in spite of the fact that the whole competitive bidding process for the award of that particular contract, called the Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) was canceled on January 3, 2024, more than two months before Julie Essiam’s appointment as CG.

Moreover, both the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and the Central Tender Review Committee (CTRC) had earlier rejected TCS/IPMC on the grounds that they failed to meet up to 80% of GRA’s requirements on deployment experience and also failed the 30% local content test.

Again, of the three top entities that qualified for the financial proposal stage, each with over 80% score at the technical stage, TCS/IPMC was the most expensive.

Out of the top three, Axon Information Systems had the lowest cost of US$41 million, followed by Persol and Atos with US$61 million, while TCS/IPMC had the highest cost of US$69 million.

Workers of GRA have even written officially to Julie Essiam raising concerns about the cost of the contract to GRA, its impact on workers, and why the whole competitive bidding.

In reaction to these developments, Prof. Stephen Adei said he is privy to the full scores of the initial competitive bids process for the ITAS contract, and he is fully aware that Axon, a Ghanaian company, came on top, per both the technical and financial proposals, so, it will be only on the basis of “corruption and moral depravity” if GRA hands over the contract to the Indian company.

“I want to serve notice that based on what I have seen and what I know if the government allows this Indian company to take over our domestic tax mobilization, I will personally embark on a one-man demonstration against it,” he said.

“I Stephen Adei, I will not sit down and allow people like Julie Essiam to sell Ghana for a song.”