Investigations undertaken by a group identifying itself as Movement for Truth and Accountability, and corroborated by the New Crusading GUIDE, has revealed how some1,200 companies are in the business of invadingtax and launderingmoney out of the country, at a time the country needs money to carry out developmental projects.
Interestingly, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), EOCO, and the Ministry of Finance, that are supposed to act to bring the culprits (name withheld) to book, have developed cold feet and claim to have written to only 200 of the companies to respond to the corruption allegation leveled against them.
The companies involved in the nation-wrecking activities, according to Movement for Truth and Accountability,at a press conference yesterday, are: importers ranging fromautomobile,cold store business, retailers, rice, sugar, meat, spare parts, brand new lorry tires and air conditioner importers.
The rest are: mineral water companies, alcoholic drink\beverages companies, mobile phone companies, electronic equipment companies, agro-chemical among others.
Speaking at a news conference, the Convener for the Movement, Joseph Bediako said “A reliable information available to us and confirmed by the relevant state institutions points to the fact that a number of companies numbering over 1,200 have been found to be involved in either money laundering, under-invoicing and tax invasion by the Bank of Ghana Monitoring Department Ministry of Finance and other anti-corruption agencies”.
Mr. Bediako described the actions by the companies as illegal which goes a long way to plunge the country into financial crisis.
He indicated that the main aim of the group was to protect the image of the country and not to tarnish the image of any company or individual in the country.
“It means that huge amount of monies transferred to other jurisdictions solely for import purposes cannot be traced because the companies allegedly underinvoiced, are involved in money laundering or refused paying the required taxes,” he opined.
He disclosed that in August 6th and December, 4th 2020, the group wrote to the FIC and the GRA to make them aware of the companies allegedly involved in the money laundering and tax invasion and they (GRA and the FIC) in turn wrote back to them that they were also investigating the said companies but nothing had been heard since last year.
The group Convener further intoned that people behind these companies involved council of state members, ministers of state, members of parliament, media practitioners, including known TV morning show hosts, church leaders and other top businessmen and top officials of the GRA.
Meanwhile, when contacted the chief executive officer of the Financial Intelligence Centre, Mr. KwakuDua, denied that state institutions mandated to act on the allegations had developed cold feet, saying that an investigations committee involving the ministry of finance, EOCO, GRA and others was set up after the incident to investigate the matter.
According to FIC Executive Director his outfit was only playing a lead role in the investigations but was not the cause of any delay as alleged by the group.
Stay tuned as this paper goes into the wild to fetch the names of some of the companies allegedly involved in the acts.
