GRA gets new Commissioner-General
Mr Emmanuel Kofi Nti, a Tax Policy Advisor, is the new Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
He took up the role on Friday after Mr George Blankson, the former Commissioner-General handed the baton of leadership to him at a pull-out ceremony at the Head Office of the GRA in Accra.
Mr Blankson served the Authority for seven years and spearheaded the integration and modernisation of the three main revenue agencies.
The hand-over ceremony, the first in the history of GRA, saw staff and management praising the outgoing Commissioner-General for his dedicated service.
Representatives of the various departments and units of the authority presented citations and gifts to Mr Blankson and his wife while the leaders of the organised group of the GRA praised him for improving the welfare of the staff during his tenure of office.
Dr Edward Larbi Siaw, Tax Policy Advisor in a speech read on behalf of the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, commended Mr Blankson for the tireless efforts to improve revenue mobilisation.
“Three years after resuming office as the Commissioner-General of the newly formed authority, he doubled revenue for the State and was very tremendous,” he said.
Mr Blankson said there was a positive outlook for revenue mobilization in the years ahead due to the commitment of the government and the current Minister of Finance.
Besides, the GRA management has the capacity to reform revenue administration. Mr Blankson appealed to the staff and management of the GRA to support the new Commissioner-General to ensure success.
Mr Nti underscored the importance of revenue mobilization to the socio-economic development of the country.
He urged the personnel to work together as a team and not as members of individual departments and units under the authority.
“We must work as a team with a focus to make the country better, not as staff of the value added tax unit, customs or any other unit,” he said, and indicated that staff of the various divisions could be moved to other divisions where their expertise were required.
Mr Nti is a banker, economist, statistician, accountant and tax expert with experience.
He holds a combined Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Ghana and a combined Master’s degree in Economics and Financial Forecasting from the London Metropolitan
University.
He is a Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Ghana; Fellow of the Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (ACCA); United Kingdom and Member of Chartered Institute of Taxation, Ghana.
He started his career as an Economist with the Bank of Ghana where he worked in the Development Finance, Rural Banking, Banking Supervision and the Treasury Departments.
He left the Central Bank as the Head of the Treasury Information Statistics Office (TISO) of the Treasury Department where his work involved collaborating extensively with the Research Department, reporting on the foreign currency denominated receipts and payments through the Central Bank, the Open Position of banks, and the CentralBank’s Cash Flow.
He was the first Secretary of the Foreign Exchange Reserve Management Committee that managed the Central Bank’s investments and reserves.
He worked at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning as a consultant and was instrumental in the setting up of the Tax Policy Unit (TPU) in 2006 with objectives that include: providing a platform
for developing and maintaining an effective tax policy making framework.
The TPU was tasked with providing alternative measures for growth and stability in government’s revenues; analysis of tax policy effects on different groups; building the requisite database and analysing the contents for policy formulation, conducting impact assessment and evaluation of tax policies.
The TPU collaborates extensively with the GRA, which implements policies that are pioneered by the TPU.
Mr Nti was the Head of the Tax Policy Unit at the Ministry of Finance from 2006 to 2012, during which period he spearheaded the formation of the Revenue Forecasting team composed of staff from the Ministry of Finance, Ghana Revenue Authority and the Statistical Service; introduction of the Communication Service Tax; creation of the Customer Services Unit of the then Internal Revenue Service; and reforming the Petroleum and Mining fiscal regimes.
Until recently he served as a Consultant Economist and Tax Expert, Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases Department of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa Region, working from the WHO Office in Kampala, Uganda and then as resident consultant in Ghana.
In this role, he provided technical support on economic and taxation issues to Sub-Sahara African countries, including providing training on various areas of economics of tobacco, technical assistance in building South-South cooperation in the areas of tobacco, taxation, health, and economic cost studies.
He has served as an adjunct lecturer at the Ashesi University and the Central University.
At Ashesi, he taught final year Bachelor of Science (Administration) students in International Finance while at the Central University he was a lecturer in International Trade and International Economics in the MBA programme.
Source: GNA