The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has said the Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah is currently on a scheduled six-day leave which had been approved a month ago.
The GRA said Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah will resume work on Monday, 15th January, 2024.
While on leave, every engagement that is required of him or GRA in the Audit by KPMG is being diligently attended to either by himself or one of the commissioners, it added.
The GRA said this while refuting a claim by North Tongu lawmaker Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa that he has fled the country over the auditing of the agreement between the Authority and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).
Mr Ablakwa while making the claim said that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo assisted Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Adu Owusu-Amoah to run away from the country with his family.
“President Akufo-Addo must immediately offer a sincere explanation to Ghanaians on the circumstances under which the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Adu Owusu-Amoah who signed the dubious SML contract was allowed to travel out of the country with his entire nuclear family less than 24 hours after Akufo-Addo’s 2nd January, 2024 press statement announcing that KPMG has been tasked to carry out an urgent audit into the sleazy affair,” he said.
“My unimpeachable and irrefutable tracking of Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Adu Owusu-Amoah reveals that on January 3, 2024, he led his family to swiftly and clandestinely leave the jurisdiction. Exactly a week ago, the entire Owusu-Amoah family departed at 17:10 on TAP Air Portugal, flight TP 1527 from KIA-Terminal 3. Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Adu Owusu-Amoah used an ordinary Ghanaian passport issued on June 14, 2019, with its last four digits being 5283.”
But in a statement responding to him, the GRA said “Management of the GRA wishes to categorically state that, the Commissioner-General of GRA, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, has not absconded as stated in the said publication. The Commissioner-General is currently on a scheduled six (6) day leave which had been approved a month ago. Rev. Dr. Owusu-Amoah will resume work on Monday, 15th January, 2024. While on leave, every engagement that is required of him or GRA in the Audit by KPMG is being diligently attended to either by himself or one of the commissioners.”
The Management of the GRA further said it found Ablakwa’s publication to be a total misrepresentation of facts.
“It is a malicious, sensational, misleading and deliberate attempt to damage the reputation of the Commissioner-General, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah and the GRA as a whole. We hereby demand an immediate retraction of the said publication from all media platforms and unqualified apologies from Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and ghextractives.com for the misrepresentation of facts.
“Management of GRA wishes to assure the public that we are committed to our mandate of revenue mobilization with integrity, fairness and professionalism.”
