The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority exceeded its revenue target of GH¢10.9billion for last year as it recorded GH¢12.3billion, the first time since 2017, its Commissioner, Col. Kwadwo Damoah, has revealed.
Customs was initially given a revenue target of GH¢13.3 billion but the figure was revised to GH¢10.9 billion due to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic.
Col. Damoah attributed this feat to strong collaborations with the local private sector as well as the exchange of information with other customs administrations to surmount the hurdles created by the pandemic.
GRA also collected GH¢45billion of the revised GH¢42.3billion target in spite of the hardships caused by the COVID-19.
“Naturally our expectation of going beyond the 47 Billion did not materialize. But if you take into account the greater part of the year, COVID had its devastating toll on us, and we still managed to get so close to the original and even more than our revised target, then it means GRA as a whole, and Customs did very well,” he asserted
He said Customs seek to leverage on strengthened strong cross-sector collaborations, increased skill exchange and capacity building to position itself for a sustainable supply chain, which would go a long way to help them contribute to achieving the ambitious GH¢60 billion target GRA has set for itself in 2021.
He indicated that with the necessary interventions made, as well as help of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), from May 2020, Customs begun exceeding the monthly 1 billion cedis target but could not compensate for the losses made for the period between Feb and May.
“When we got to September-October, we realized that continuously from May, we were always exceeding the I billion mark and we tried as much as possible to push to meet the original 13.3 Billion target,” he disclosed.