Ghana's Domestic Tax Mobilization Unilaterally Willed To Indian Company, Tata?

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), under its recently appointed and first female Commissioner-General, Julie Essiam has reportedly approved a UNILATERALLY deal for an Indian company called Tata Consultancy Services and its Ghana-based Indian partners, IPMC to take over Ghana's domestic tax mobilization in 2026. 

Very reliable sources at GRA have intimated to Techfocus24 that the CG reportedly travelled to Indian herself and signed the contract with Tata in India, to come and start work in 2026.

She then allegedly congregated the staff of the Domestic Tax Revenue Department (DTRD) and urged them to cooperate with Tata when they come to install their software at GRA.

Additionally, all IT and IT contracts from Support Services Department (SSD) of GRA have been allegedly migrated to the Commissioner-General's office, so that she will have personal oversight.

Sources say this whole move was orchestrated from 2022, when Rev. Dr. Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah was Commissioner-General of GRA.

But he had to truncate the whole process in January 2023 for very genuine reasons - including the fact that GRA had no money to undertake the contract, and also because the current contractor for domestic tax mobilization is a local company that has been lauded widely for doing a fantastic job for far less remuneration than what some players in the industry take for doing relatively less.

Techfocus24 earlier reported that the former CG was replaced with Julie Essiam mainly because he stood in the way of that deal when he realized it was not in the national interest.

But the outgoing government have finally managed to sign away Ghana's domestic tax mobilization to Indians.

Take note that come 2026, the current government will be out of power, no matter which political party wins the 2024 elections.

So, they have closed a deal through a unilateral approval by Julie Essiam, with a three-edged sword which shortchanges a competent local company, by handing the data of Ghanaians to an Indian company on a silver platter.

Incidentally, this also poses judgement debt risk for the new government.

Way back January 3, 2024, the former CG of GRA, 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.