WESTERN REGION IRS POISED FOR MORE REVENUE (THRUSDAY, FEB 28, PAGE 25)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

THE Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the Western Region is poised to see a significant improvement in its revenue mobilisation efforts this year as economic activities in the region increase steadily.
With the increase in infrastructure in the hospitality industry, the discovery of oil, which is attracting many people to the area, the completion of the West African Gas Pipeline project, coupled with an increase in physical social infrastructure, officials of the regional IRS have predicted a significant improvement in their collection efforts.
The Western Regional Manager of the IRS, Mr Eben Osabutey, told the Daily Graphic that one of the challenges the service faced was mobility, saying that was because of the lack of vehicles to move across the region in the quest to bag every pesewa for the State.
He said that problem seemed to have been solved with the allocation of new vehicles which would be distributed to various collection points which hitherto had difficulties reaching taxpayers.
Mr Osabutey said the collection point exceeded its 2007 target by 15.3 per cent and added that all the collection points except one performed well.
“The Western Region exceeded its revenue target for the year ending December 2007. We collected a total revenue of GH¢280 million,” he said, adding that even though one of the collection points did not do well as a result of some logistical constraints, its performance was 13 per cent higher that the previous year’s.
Mr Osabutey said during the year under review, the self-employed sector recorded a downturn of three per cent, compared to the 29 per cent it recorded in 2006.
He said but for the unexpected energy crisis the country experienced, things would have been better.
“We are aware of the contributions we receive from our taxpayers as partners in national development and we will do our best to cover the greater part of the region,” he said.
Mr Osabutey said apart from the vehicles allocated to the districts, their offices had been renovated and equipped to create the congenial environment for enhanced service delivery.
He said the establishment of quality assurance and compliance units as additional regional units would complement the efforts of the district offices in the Western and Central regions.