Accra, Oct. 12, GNA - The Value Added Tax (VAT) Service on Thursday closed three firms for non-payment of tax as part of an ongoing exercise by the Service to recover debts.

The officials closed Benok Limited, which owes about 51 million cedis and Unibind Ghana Limited, which owes about seven million cedis. At Effeh Place, a restaurant in Tema, customers had to go back since the VAT officials locked the place up. At Fruit Pack Industries Limited, also in Tema, there was nobody on the premises of the Company apart from a security officer, who informed the officials that the Company had been closed down since June due to financial difficulties.

According to the VAT officials Fruit Pack Industries Limited owed about 80 million cedis.

Premier Meat Products Limited was opened for operations again late in the afternoon after paying about 141 million cedis. Mr Daniel Fialesehie, Public Relations Officer of the Ringway Local VAT Office, told the GNA that most of the companies owing the VAT had underpaid their tax.

He reminded organizations that the issuance of VAT invoices was very important and cautioned them to issue VAT invoices to enable them to know the exact amount they needed to pay at the end of every month. Mr Fialesehie urged the public to insist on the VAT invoice anytime they patronized services or bought from any VAT registered organization. Mr David Kwaku Obuobi, Revenue Assistant, said that the exercise was ongoing and advised all VAT debtors to get their money ready for collection or come to the office to pay willingly. The VAT Service started an exercise to retrieve some 2.5 billion cedis owed to the Service on Wednesday. Mr Albert Akplah, Head of the Ringway Estate Local VAT Office, said they had to resort to the distress action to recover the money after every effort to collect it had failed. He said it was not in the interest of the Service to close down companies but rather to motivate them to pay their taxes. The affected companies were given 14 days to pay the debt or the Service would confiscate their assets and auction them to settle the debts. 12 Oct. 06