Seven retail outlets belonging to some Oil Marketing Companies in the Republic of Ghana have been shutdown by the West African nation’s revenue authority, GRA.
The seven retail outlets are Santol Limited, Grid Petroleum, Life Petroleum, Sawiz Petroleum, Deliman and Co. Ltd, Petra Energy and Sonnidom Limited.
They owe the state to the tune of GHc98,155, 797.62 in taxes.
Santol Ltd owes GHc57,398,141.90, Grid Petroleum owes GHc1,253, 969.51, Life Petroleum owes GHc1, 149,946.78,Sawiz Petroleum owes GHc5,122,387.20, Deliman & Co. Ltd owes GHc11, 631,689.80, Petro Energy owes GHc20, 736,960.30 and Sonnidan owes GHc862,702.13
Speaking to the press after closing down the seven retail outlets in an exercise dubbed: ‘VAT Distress Action’, Mr Nathaniel Okai Tetteh, who is the Chief Revenue Officer in charge of Debt Management, Compliance and Enforcement Unit of the GRA, said the exercise was undertaken after a failed discussions and negotiations with the companies to pay their outstanding taxes to the Authority.
Mr. Tetteh said the locked-up companies have 10 days to visit the Authority’s Head Office to settle their debts to avoid further actions like auctioning their assets.
He said the GRA would go after companies like Santol Limited, Life Petroleum, Delma Company Limited and Petra Energy which owed the Authority a huge sum of money.
He said the exercise was to enforce tax compliance and improve the Authority’s revenue generation.
The exercise also formed part of the GRA’s comprehensive national tax campaign to encourage more Ghanaians to honour their tax obligations to enable the government to meet its domestic revenue targets, increase social intervention policies and accelerate development across the country.
The Authority, in September 2019, launched a task force dubbed: “’Operation Collect, Name and Shame’, aimed at collecting overdue taxes and the names of recalcitrant businesses were published in the media and asked to settle their debts.
