The Ghana Revenue Authority in a letter dated 28th October, 2013 ordered all tele-communication networks in Ghana to grant physical access of their physical network nodes of the service providers to allow effective monitoring of the Communication’s Service Tax (CST) Revenue by a Company so contracted by GRA, Messrs Subah Info Solutions.
The letter requested that all Telcos granted Messrs Subah Info solution, the firm contracted by the GRA to monitor the CST revenue on its behalf, access to their physical nodes to connect its monitoring equipment in accordance with the provisions of section 7 of the CST (Amendment) Act 2013 (Act 864).
Messrs Subah Info solutions was advised by the letter to avail themselves of the earliest opportunity to connect its monitoring equipment to the physical network nodes of the communication service providers and give feed on same to the Commissioner-General of the GRA.
The letter also reminded the Telcos that under the CST Amendment Act 2013, (Act 864) they commit an offence if they refuse to provide the GRA and for that matter Messrs Subah Info solutions access to their network and will be liable to pay a penalty of five (5) percent of their annual gross revenue indicated by their last audited financial statements after the first thirty (30) days which will start from the date of receipt of the said letter and risk getting their licenses revoked if the situation persists after ninety (90) days.
However our investigations have revealed that the electronic monitoring of the CST Revenue has not begun nearly six months after the GRA gave this order and over a year since this amended Act has been in existence.
Our investigations also revealed that, talks, negotiations and underground arrangements are now taking place between the mentoring firm Messrs Subah Info solutions and the network providers although the former had been contracted since 2010 to execute the monitoring task.
However, according to some information Subah has begun doing some work on Expresso. This, we gathered, might probably be happening because Expresso which is being taken over by the parent company of Subah Info Solutions, Jospong Group, and as to why other Telcos are still left without any monitoring by Subah still remains unanswered.
Does this mean that none of all theses preliminary investigations were done before such contract was signed which is leading to those processes now taken place?
Or is this a deliberate effort by the Telcos to frustrate the monitoring of their revenues to allow for effective tax collection?
The main reason for the existence of this Amendment Act (Act 864) is to prevent under-declaration of revenue by the Telcos which had been the suspicion of government.
With the absence of this electronic monitoring, doesn’t this allow for questioning of the authenticity of the revenues that is currently been declared by the Telcos? And who is making this electronic monitoring a difficult tax for government and for how long do Ghanaians have to wait for this electronic monitoring to begin in order to ensure that we are attracting the right taxes into our nation’s consolidated fund?
Again, when the story of GRA contracting Messrs Subah Info solution to electronically monitor the Telcos broke in the media from October 23, 2013, the Ministry of Finance issued a release admitting that it had suspended payment to the said firm due to issues with the legitimacy of the contract.
The President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama equally echoed that the contract between the GRA and the Monitoring firm was improper and ordered the Attorney General, Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Communication to immediately begin investigations into the operations and the contract between GRA and Messrs Subah Info Solutions.
It is also worth noting that for about three months since the president ordered for this investigation, no word has been issued to the public regarding what the investigative committee has uncovered.
Reports indicate that none of the Telcos has been invited for interrogation as at yet. The finance Minister said in an interview late last year that he is not certain when the committee will complete its work.
So could the delay in the completion of the investigative committee’s? work be a contributing factor to why the CST Revenue is not been electronically monitored by Messrs Subah Info solution as at yet? The Finance Minister Seth Tekpeh also said in the interview that the expose of the GRA and Subah Info Solution deal was a wake-up call to government but assured that the best qualified men are managing the affairs of the nation’s finances hence the impression should not be created that a chunk of the nation’s revenues are wasting away.
It will also be recalled that when the story of GRA and Subah Info solution broke, with the exception of GRA, Ministries of Finance and Communications and the Presidency other stakeholders such as the NCA, the Telcos and Subah Info solutions made no public comment.
However certain latest revelations may require that these above mentioned stakeholders offer clear explanations surrounding the revenue monitoring operations within the Telecom industry for the benefit of the ordinary Ghanaian and the state who are the ultimate beneficiaries of tax collection in Ghana.
At a press conference held by the GRA in October 2013, it indicated that Messrs Subah Info solutions were contracted on two-prongs. First to electronically monitor domestic call data traffic and secondly to analyse domestic call data records.
The GRA went further to state that the monitoring firm could not execute one part of the contract which required electronic monitoring because such was been contested against by the Telcos in court.
It however said the second part of the contract which required them to analyse Cal Data Records (CDRs) sent to the NCA by the Telcos was being carried out by Messrs Subah Info solutions.
But information gathered from NCA indicates that it does not give out any Call Data Records (CDRs) to any entity and that it only deals with foreign traffic.
Source at NCA confirmed that NCA has never given any CDR to Subah but that the NCA deals with foreign traffic and Subah was contracted by GRA.
It also emerged that all CDRs that have been submitted by the Telcos so far to the NCA are all foreign CDRs.
So is it the case that all the CDRs that were analysed by Subah were foreign although they were contracted to analyse domestic CDRs and how did Subah obtained these CDRs since the NCA claims it has never given out any CDR?
It is also emerging that another company called Global Voice Group had been given a contract and paid to electronically monitor foreign call traffic and analyse foreign CDRs.
So if the GRA says Messrs Subah Info solutions was analysing CDRs which led to increase in revenue, the explanation will be clearer if Ghanaians are made to know which CDRs did Subah analysed, foreign or domestic.
And if it is indeed true that Subah analysed foreign CDRs which was rather supposed to be the job of GVG what job did GVG execute to warrant payment for their contract and what happened to the domestic CDRs which should been the mandate of Subah and how was this switch of responsibility done and when?
According to reliable source from Subah it took over from GVG a little over a year ago to audit the CDRs so, how could Subah be paid since 2010 for job that is not within the purview of their contract? And how did GVG also execute its contract to warrant payment?
The cashbook of Subah that was also published on citifmonline.com and many other websites indicated that the firm consistently paid hundreds of thousands of Ghana Cedis for data collection. What data was been collected, why was it paid for and to what entity was this money paid to?
According to the GRA Subah executed its duties diligently hence leading to rise in incremental value of revenues realised by the GRA. The GRA also said that the contract with Subah required them to be paid 13.5% incremental revenues made and has so far paid the firm to the tune of about 75,000 Cedis. So the incremental value of what Subah assisted GRA to recover from the Telcos amounted to 13.5% times 75,000 which is about 555,555. If this analysis is anything to go by it means without Subah, the state would have lost this huge sums of money within the period in which Subah was contracted to analyse the CDRs.
So is the analysis able to tell the Public which Telcos attempted to under declare and how much was involved. Why are the Telcos not being taken on for such acts of under declaration which some can even describe as criminal.
Perhaps it is for these many lingering questions and controversies that the public is anxious of the outcome of the investigative committee comprising the Ministries of Finance, Communications and Attorney General’s office to come out with it findings as soon as possible to leave wondering minds at rest.
More soon
