Against the scenery of media reports that over 200 public and private companies operating in Ghana have evaded tax duties amounting to $367 million, in-depth investigations conducted by The Informer reveal otherwise.

The Informer will be the first to support government in its resolved position of building a Better Ghana; and so will ensure that all revenue sources to the state are secured.

However, it came to light during this paper’s investigations on the above-subject that the Presidency was misled by the taskforce, in that, the figure mentioned in the various media report is far from the truth.

In fact, government would have served itself from the huge embarrassment as The Informer publishes its in-depth findings on the above issue; if the body (taskforce) put forward by the Presidency had done due diligence.

Basis for Government’s Apology

First, it came to the fore that an audit was not carried out on the impromptu data that the taskforce used in arriving at the said figure. The impromptu data our investigations have learnt does not capture export and re-export of goods stored in the bonded warehouse, hence the challenge thrown to government of putting out inaccurate information.

It is believed also that until the data is made to undergo a forensic audit the accuracy of the information cannot be determined.

Secondly, the taskforce after failing to do due diligence, based the reported figure on the Cost Insurance and Freight (CIF) value, instead of a computed percentage of the CIF value.

The Informer can state without fear of negation that, the taskforce being disingenuous to its employers and Ghanaians; in that, the discovery was made 3 years ago when an employee of GCNet fraudulently broke into a Customs data.

The GCNet Manager (name withheld) our investigation revealed, is now a fugitive in the United Kingdom (UK), for deleting and manipulating data on the Customs Server so as to assist Warehouse operators to evade Customs duties.

Again, after thorough scrutiny of the list put out by government as regards the companies alleged to be on the debt list, it became crystal clear that the taskforce goofed, big time, having repeated some of the CIF values.

Checks conducted, however, have it that government is hugely indebted to some of the companies captured by the report and only God knows their next line of action.