The enforcement team of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has locked the Chinese retail shop, China Mall, and its warehouses on the Spintex Road and Ashaiman in Accra for electronic VAT noncompliance.
The Mall was locked down because of the inability of the company to fix their tax electronic collection system to enable the GRA access the data for auditing purposes.
The GRA on October 1, 2022 started the Electronic VAT system to block leakages in revenue collection, and also to ascertain the actual income of businesses.
According to the Accra Area Enforcement Manager, Joseph Annan, the action has become necessary after many attempts to get the company to comply with the law failed.
“This is just for them to fix their system for the electronic VAT. We have engaged them on several occasions to get this simple system fixed. The place shall be sealed and locked until they comply with the law. This is part of the Enforcement exercise which we are doing at all the China Mall branches,” he said.
Managers of the mall got a wind of the action and closed the shopping centre even before the Enforcement team arrived at the premises.
Workers at the warehouse protested during the action, but to no avail.
Mr. Annan stated that the GRA will extend the exercise to all branches of China Mall in the country.
Meanwhile, the biggest shop in Ghana, Melcom is electronic VAT compliant and GRA officers have been there monitoring sales for the purposes of VAT collection.
