The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, has called on Parliament to investigate a US$ 75 million loan acquired by the Ghana Revenue Authority(GRA), which he described as ‘illegal’.
According to the lawmaker, the Finance Committee of Parliament has noticed that GRA borrowed US $75 million in the annual public debt report for 2022.
He argued that the GRA could not acquire such a facility without recourse to Parliament.
“GRA has no business to take money without the authorisation of Parliament because we fund GRA from the revenue it generates. The law says that we give them a retention of up to 3% of the value they collect in a year. The Parliament of Ghana appropriates that up to 3% but shouldn’t exceed 3%. It goes through the normal development and appropriate process in Parliament,” he explained.
The Bolgatanga Central MP said it was wrong for GRA to access such funds outside the revenue it generates, so officials must provide answers.
“I want to serve to warn that when they are coming, we don’t want to ambush them. They should prepare to come and explain which appropriations act mandated them to spend 75 million dollars outside of their regular allocation from the revenues they collect, which was appropriated and passed in other government obligations.
“They should get ready because if that is not explained to the satisfaction of the committee, they should trust that we will take steps to deduct that money; we will not allow that impudence and recklessness,” the MP stressed.
Mr Adongo reiterated that the authority had no authorisation to appropriate such funds.
“I hear they said they took the loan on their balance sheet. We don’t care what they took it on, but the problem is that it is a covered entity, and the Public Finance Management Act requires that covered entities, even when you are given free money(what we call grant), if you don’t appropriate it, and it’s not in the appropriate act, you cannot spend.
“So whether they borrowed it on their balance sheet or whatever sheet, who authorised those expenditures that they spent 75m dollars on?” he quizzed.
He added,” This is a huge scandal waiting to happen, or is it that they borrowed that money to pretend that they have raised money? Is it what they borrowed to say that they have met the target? Or did they borrow to shore up the target or the revenue collection? Is that what they did? Who authorised them? What did they use the money for?”