In their quest to ensure that, the current fire outbreak at its revenue office don’t affect revenue collections, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced plans to rent new offices to cater to for its large taxpayers as well small taxpayers by Monday to serve as alternative offices for clients ahead of relocation.
This was disclosed by the Acting Comissioner General of the Aurhority Amishadai Owusu-Amoah at a press conference in Accra.
According to him, “looking at the current building, we are not too sure how quickly we can renovate and put it back into use.
As a result of this, arrangements he noted are far advanced to rent some new offices where the Authority will operate temporarily, expecting that come Monday, the largest and medium taxpayers’ office will be in a new office to deliver the full service in one location.
Meanwhile, the Acting Commissioner indicated that, it will not rule out arson as a possible cause for the fire that gutted its large taxpayer office at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra on Sunday, December 1.
Stating that, the Authority is working with the Ghana Fire Service for investigations into the cause of the fire outbreak.
Revealing that, as at now, the Authority has not cited any detailed report as referred to by some media houses regarding to the cause of the fire outbreaks but won’t deny the fact that, the Ghana Fire Service so come from time to time to ensure the right thing is adhered to as far the buildings are concerned.
“We are in constant touch with them so whatever needs to be done will be done as far as our safety is concerned. We cannot at this moment say, that there was arson as it is been said. But, we cannot rule anything out as far as investigation is concerned”, he acknowledged.
On December 1st, 2019, the revenue office of the Ghana,Revenue Authority located at Circle got fire around 4am resulting in “extensive structural damages to its ICT centre.
Some onlookers who were upset with the Fire Service’s handling of the situation accused them of not being prepared enough to handle the blaze.
However, the Ghana Fire Service has since begun investigations to determine the real cause of the fire.
with regards to the lost of data as perceived by the general public, the Acting Commissioner General, Amishadai Owusu Amoah at the press conference emphasized that, the existing systems backup does not only ensure the recovery of files but also business continuity.
Therefore the blaze did not result in the loss of any data.
He advised the general public to ignore the reports that said the Authority had lost cash in the fire describing such information as “fake news”.
“Data is safe and no loss of cash or cheques have been recorded after a fire outbreak. In essence, our core data is safe, as all GRA files are automatically backed up at an offsite data centre”, he stressed.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com/ Ishmael Barfi/ senghana@gmail.com
