VAT Service gets tough…They descend on lottery operators
Guinness gives 300mC to Black Stars
Man Gets 10 years for attempting to sell boy
Murdered judge’s son cries for justice
IRS reacts to "Crusading Guide" editorial on Air Ghana’s 8bnC tax evasion saga
Madam Tuvi… A true achiever
VAT Service gets tough…They descend on lottery operators
In a front-page story the Daily Graphic reports that the Value Added Tax (VAT) Service has come out with new and stringent laws to enforce compliance with the new tax regime by the lotto industry as from April, this year.
Under the guidelines, which are yet to be issued to lottery operators they would be required to use only VAT invoices for running their businesses.
According to the Graphic, Mr Ezekiel Asamoah, Commissioner of the VAT Service, said the guidelines cover the mode of collection, filing of returns and offences and penalties relating to non-compliance with the tax.
He said although some operators are currently accounting for the tax through the use of their own receipts, others are openly disregarding the VAT Law and are just doing what they like resulting in loss of revenue to the state. Mr. Asamoah is reported to have stated that the Service intends to give all its operators a grace period from now to April for them to put their houses in order and after the period, "we will have no alternative but to ensure that the necessary penalties are applied according to the VAT Law".
Mr. Asamoah said the VAT Service also intends to instil sanity into the conduct of the lotto business in local industries as directed by the President in his 1999 session address.
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Guinness gives 300mC to Black Stars
The Daily Graphic has a cover page story that says Guinness the official sponsors of Ghana’s Black Stars, presented a cheque for 300 million cedis to the team. The presentation was made at a ceremony at the team’s base, the Crown Apartmento Hotel in Accra.
Mr. Devlin Hainsworth, managing Director of Guinness Ghana, who presented the cheque to the team, is said to have observed that since assuming duty in Ghana, he has been impressed with the performance of the Stars and was, therefore, optimistic that the team would do well in the "CAN 2000" tournament, which kicks of on Saturday.
He said Guinness ‘s package of 300 million cedis is being given directly to the players to motivate them not only to perform excellently in CAN 2000 but in all other matches throughout the year. Receiving the cheque, skipper C.K Akunnor, is said to have recalled with nostalgia similar support Guinness gave the team two years ago and promised that he and his colleagues were determined not to disappoint their official sponsors and all their fans.
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Man Gets 10 years for attempting to sell boy
A third page story in the Daily Graphic says the Central Regional Tribunal chaired by MR. K.B Anning, yesterday sentenced a 28-year-old fisherman Kodjo Slipi, to 10 years’ imprisonment for attempting to sell a 15-year-old boy.
According to the report, the judge said child slavery is a crime against humanity and the country. Mr. Anning said "the slave trade had been abolished and no one should make any attempts to revive it because the law would take its course when you are arrested".
The court heard that on January 6, this year, the Central Regional Police Command was tipped off that Slipi wanted to sell three children, two males and a female, whom he was keeping at his hideout in Elmina.
Prosecutor Henry Tandoh is said to have told the court that a team of policemen in plain clothes was dispatched as buyers from Cote d’Ivoire to the hideout but the victim, a 17-year-old boy, escaped when he was being handed over to the buyers. The report continues that the accused promised the plain clothes police men another child.
On January 8, Slipi informed the ‘buyers’ that he had another child, this time a 15-year-old boy, Kojo Gyan, to be sold. They told him that they would go over to his hideout on January 11 for the transaction. On the appointed day, the police went to meet Slipi at his hideout and after bargaining, he agreed on four million cedis as the price for the boy. but he was consequently arrested..
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The Crusading Guide
Murdered judge’s son cries for justice
The front-page banner headline in the Crusading Guide reports that the son of one of the murdered judges has declined to accept an apology from President Jerry Rawlings, saying it was not genuine.
The story start with a quote from Kwabena Agyapong the 44-year-old son of Mr Justice K.A Agyapong, who was murdered in 1992 with two other judges and a retired army officer. "Let me repeat myself, I will not let this matter rest until everything is known. I am even more determined because of the weight of information I have been able to gather over the past year. It clearly suggests that Rawlings and his wife were far more implicated than has been made public" he is said to have warned.
The Crusading Guide says that Mr. Agyapong who has said so before, restated that on the day his father was murdered, the "operation vehicle’s" key was picked from Mrs Rawlings’ kitchen table and the car itself, a Fiat Campagnola, was parked at her residence.
The report quotes Mr. Agyapong as saying that the four members of the murder squad namely; Johnny Dzandu, Tekpor Hekli, Lance Corporal Amedeka and Komla Senya, were all long-time friends of the Rawlings’. According to the paper, Agyapong affirmed that he was reliably informed that the other aspect of Rawlings' involvement was unwittingly revealed by his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, who called on some June Four Movement leaders and berated them for issuing a statement condemning the murders, is said to have told them that those killed were reactionaries, which was then a commonly used term for those who opposed the revolution.
According to the story, Mrs Rawlings threatened to have the Director-General Of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation dismissed for allowing Akan dirges to be played on the radio, implying resentment to the killings. According to the report, Mr Agyapong emphasised his readiness to be part of any "meaningful process that will bring this painful episode to an end".
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IRS reacts to "Crusading Guide" editorial on Air Ghana’s 8bnC tax evasion saga
The Crusading Guide also reports that an editorial comment the paper wrote in its January 16-19 issue this year, has drawn a reaction from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The said editorial comment headlined "IRS what about the Air Ghana probe?" sought to inquire about the update on investigations being conducted by the revenue collecting agency into the reported tax evasion by Air Ghana, owned by Mr. Marwan Traboulsi, described as ‘a self proclaimed friend of President Rawlings’.
The paper gives a background to the case, which it says started with a series of publications from it. The reports said to have been carried in most of its editions last year got the IRS into action to investigate allegations that Air Ghana was in deed evading tax.
The paper says it only recently published the editorial comment because of what it called the ‘dead silence’ on the matter and rumours that Traboulsi was apparently using his connection with the powers that be including the President, to influence the investigations.
Obviously stung by the comment, the Guide continues, the IRS issued a statement from its Public Relations Department last week saying that the information supplied by the paper "had been helpful but inconclusive".
According to the Guide, the IRS statement further said in order to be fair and impartial in its dealings with taxpayers and all parties involved, the IRS has to conduct a very thorough investigation on all information it receives as a matter of policy. The report also stated that "in view of this, the Service is still in the process of gathering more comprehensive information on the financial transaction of Air Ghana within the relevant period".
The Guide reports that in an interview with Mr. Abraham Odoi, Chief Inspector of Taxes and Mrs. Acolatse of the Public Relations Department, the former said one of the impediments in the investigations was that some of the sources were overseas and were not easily accessible.
The two officials are said to have disputed the earlier report by the Crusading Guide that the bone of contention between the IRS and Traboulsi was the difference in the amounts of the tax Air Ghana has allegedly evaded.
Both Mr. Odoi and Mrs. Acolatse are reported as bluntly pointing out that the IRS is not under any obligation to furnish the Crusading Guide or any other media house with the outcome of the investigations.
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The Accra Mail
Madam Tuvi… A true achiever
The Accra Mail says that after the controversy raised by the "Millennium Excellence Awards", many other excellent Ghanaians who might have been too insignificant to feature, are being thrown up by their communities as the true millennium personalities.
The Mail says in its front page story headlined "Madam Tuvi, a true achiever", that the 71-year-old woman who is illiterate, did not see her inability to have a formal education as a disadvantage but rather to use it to propel herself to greater heights.
According to the story, though Madam Tuvi can neither read nor right, she is full of praises for God for giving her vision and foresight. The septuagenarian is said to have set out to give to others what had been denied her -: education.
The Accra Mail says that it recently discovered that apart from other investments, Madam Tuvi has since 1959, invested in a complex of schools, including a computer training school to educate the youth in her community. According to her, since 1990, the schools have turned out quality senior and junior secondary school students, who are now pursuing further courses in various parts of the country.
She is said to charge very low fees at her schools so that as she herself says, "many more children can come to my Happy Home Academy and computer schools" both sited at Ashaiman, near Tema.
Asked how as an illiterate, she manages to run her schools, Madam Tuvi is said to have explained that she has left the day-to-day administration in the hands of her children, who also double as the board of directors. She appealed to the Parliamentary Committee on Education and the Ministry of Education, to assist her to equip the computer school.
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