The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, is projecting the number of tax payers in the country to increase to sixteen million by the end of the year.
Currently the number of people registered to pay tax payers in the country stand at two million.
Dr Bawumia, who announced this at the ceremony to mark the change of name of Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia Limited to Absa Bank Ghana Limited, said roping in more people into the tax net would help to increase government’s tax revenue to accelerate national development.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia of Ghana
Absa Bank Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of Absa Group Limited, began official operations as a registered commercial bank after receiving all required regulatory approvals from the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
The move to change the name of the bank started in 2016 when Barclays PLC announced its intention to reduce ownership in Barclays Africa Group.
Dr Bawumia who delivered the keynote address explained that government this year would start to convert all the national identification numbers to tax identification numbers.
This, he said, would help the GRA to increase the current two million people who are registered to pay tax to 16 million by the end of the year.
The Vice President said the government would leverage technology to promote the development of the country, and stressed that it was for that reason that government introduced a number of digitisation programmes to reduce paper transactions in the country.
He mentioned the National Identification programme, the National Digital Property Addressing system, saying the National Identification programme was to establish the identity of people and the National Property Addressing system to establish identity and ownership of properties in the country.
The Vice President said the Ministry of Finance and Ghana Interbank and Payment Settlement System would launch the Quick Response Code to enable retailers receive and make payment for their services, saying that would make Ghana the first African country to launch the Quick Response code.
In addition, he said the Ministry of Finance would launch the Ghana Government Platform to enhance the efficiency of delivering government business.
Dr Bawumia commended Absa Bank Ghana Limited for the role the bank was playing in the development of the country.
He said the bank had supported numerous development projects in all the sectors of the economy.
The Governor of the BoG, Dr Ernest Addison in his address, said the history of Ghana could not be written without mentioning the name of Barclays Bank Ghana Limited, now Absa Bank Ghana Limited.
He said Barclays Bank Ghana Limited had left an important footprint in the country’s banking sector, saying the bank was the first bank in the country to be networked in 1998 and achieved the minimum capital requirement by the BoG.
The governor commended the management for the seamless transition from Barclays Bank Ghana Limited to Absa Bank Ghana Limited, adding that the bank was rebranding at a time when the banking industry was well capitalised and profitable.
The Group Chief Executive of Absa, Daniel Mminele said the bank was proud to be part of the country’s long rich history.
Credit: Ghanaian Times
