He said the GRA could employ the services of the police if it needed any protection in its drive to collect revenue.

Mr Ofori-Atta gave the charge in Accra Tuesday moments after the nine-member board had been inaugurated by a Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Kwaku Kwarteng.

It has Mr Harry Owusu as Chairman, with Mr Emmanuel Kofi Nti, Mr Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, Mr Ernest Akore and Mr Millison Narh as the other members.

The rest are Colonel Kojo Damoah, Ms Adelaide Ahwireng, Ms Juliana Addo-Yobo and Major Ablorh-Quarcoo.

Revenue mobilisation

The Finance Minister said revenue mobilisation was the first of the five key pillars outlined by the government to drive its economic transformation agenda.

Therefore, he said, the GRA had a herculean task to raise the needed revenue to support the prosecution of government business.

“Truly, the nation will depend on you to generate the revenue. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a warrior for the country,” he told the members of the board.

Expose corrupt officials

Mr Ofori-Atta asked the board to expose corrupt GRA officials, especially those at the ports, to save the country from losing billions of cedis.

He affirmed the resolve of the government to work within the law to ensure sanity in the revenue mobilisation regime.

Inauguration

Inaugurating the board, Mr Kwarteng said as a low middle-income economy, Ghana was transiting away from donor support.

Therefore, he said, tax revenue mobilisation had become important to sustain investments in infrastructure, health, education and other key sectors.

He said the government would continue with tax administration reforms, improve transfer pricing audits, introduce electronic point of sale devices to curb tax evasion and improve revenue collection under the Value Added Tax (VAT) system.

Besides, he said, it would improve tax collection through data matching, institute measures to broaden the tax base and begin the full implementation of the Excise Tax Stamp Act, 2013 (Act 873) to boost revenue collection and curtail under- invoicing and smuggling.

Mr Kwarteng urged the board to work towards ensuring a change within the GRA that would lead to improvement in its operations and the ability to achieve its revenue targets.

Board chairman

Mr Owusu thanked the government for the confidence reposed in the board members and pledged that they would supervise the generation of the needed revenue to support the government’s development agenda.

He urged GRA officials to be tactful in their approach to revenue collection and appealed to the public to bear with officials of the authority when they appear to be overbearing.

He said the GRA would require more points of sale and other devices to transfer data from the hinterlands to the headquarters on a timely basis.