Joe Ghartey pencilled for GRA or Road Fund board chairmanship

Member of Parliament for Essikado/Ketan Constituency in the Western Region and former Minister for Railway Development, Joe Ghartey has been pencilled down by President Akufo-Addo as the new chairman of the governing board of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) a source at the presidency has told Asaase News.

Another source at the seat of Ghana’s presidency indicates that Joe Ghartey may rather be sent to the Road Fund as board chairman to take over from the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who may be made to pick up the role as chairman of the GRA governing board.

The leadership of GRA is critical, especially at a time the government needs to up its game on revenue mobilisation. However, the methods used by GRA in recent times in its attempt to increase domestic revenue mobilisation have caused a lot of angst, and the same is believed to have hurt the government with accusations of harassment of businesses among others.

Be it Joe Ghartey or Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the successful appointee will be expected to lead the new GRA board to give direction to the management and staff of the GRA to fulfill their core mandate which is to ensure maximum compliance with all relevant tax laws in the country by businesses and the citizenry as well as to ensure a sustainable revenue stream for the government, trade facilitation, and a controlled and safe flow of goods across the country’s borders.

The Dr Anthony Oteng-Gyasi-led board of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), which has spearheaded the country’s revenue mobilisation efforts was dissolved by the President of the Republic Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Thursday, 28 March 2024.

As a consequence, the Commissioner General of the GRA who is a member of the board, Rev Dr Amishaddai Owusu-Amoah (62), was also removed and he was replaced in an acting capacity by Miss Julie Essiam, who until her new appointment, was the Commissioner responsible for the Support Services Division of the GRA.

GRA

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) was established in 2009 as a merger of the three revenue agencies; the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Value Added Tax Service (VATS), and the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB) by the Ghana Revenue Authority Act 2009, (Act 791).

GRA apart from its core mandate, also administers several international agreements that govern the country’s relations with other tax jurisdictions and institutions such as World Customs Organisation Protocols, World Trade Organisation Protocols, Double Taxation, and Exchange of Information Agreements.

The Authority is made up of two operational divisions; the Domestic Tax Revenue Division (DTRD), and the Customs Division (CD) with assistance from the Support Services Division (SSD) and the Commissioner General’s Secretariat.

Profile of Joe Ghartey

Joe Ghartey (62) in Accra is a Ghanaian lawyer, academic and politician. He was appointed by President Nana Akuffo Addo on 11th January 2017 as Railways and Development Minister and exited the ministry on 7 January 2021. Joe Ghartey hails from Shama, in the Western Region.

He was appointed House Prefect of Pickard-Parker House in his senior year and he used his good offices to champion the development of sports and student participation in sports programmes at Mfantsipim.

After Mfantsipim, Ghartey enrolled to study law and obtained his LLB (Hons) degree in 1986 from the University of Ghana and BL from the Ghana School of Law in 1988, qualifying to be called to the Bar of Ghana in that same year.

Ghartey undertook his national service duty as a legal officer to the Komenda Eguafo Abirem District Assembly in the Central Region of the Republic of Ghana. He also took up a job as an associate at the chambers of lawyer Gwira in Sekondi.

Later, he joined the firm of Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co., a leading law firm in Ghana, which was co-founded by his colleague parliamentarian and Cabinet Minister in the John Agyekum Kuffour administration, Nana Akuffo-Addo. Ghartey left this firm after seven years and in 1994 co-founded the law firm, Ghartey & Ghartey with his wife Efua Ghartey, who is a respected lawyer.

He is currently the Senior Partner at Ghartey & Ghartey, a well-respected firm of barristers & Sand solicitors located at Labone in Accra. He has provided legal services to several corporate entities and professional bodies, both nationally and internationally, ranging from the field of taxation, labour law, environmental and company law. He is an authority in corporate and investment law. He has additionally supported many human rights causes in Ghana.

As a co-founder of the Ghana Committee on Human and Peoples Rights, Hon. Ghartey has provided extensive education on Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Obligations to various citizen groups. The Committee was consequently given observer status at the African Commission for Human People’s Rights. He also served as Chair of the Inter-African Network of Human Rights Organizations based in Zambia.

He was part of the team that wrote the “Stolen Verdict”, in 1993, which was a detailed account of the widespread electoral malpractices that occurred during the 1992 general election. He chaired the Session of the National Conference which amended the constitution of the NPP at the Trade Fair Center in Accra on 22 August 2009.

This was when the Electoral College for the election of the presidential candidate was expanded from a few thousand delegates to more than one hundred thousand delegates.

He was also a member of the team of legal experts appointed by the National Council of the N.P.P to review the conduct of the election petition that was filed in the Supreme Court after the 2012 general elections and to provide recommendations going forward.

The Committee submitted its report to the National Council. The report included proposals for reform of the electoral process in Ghana. All along the coastal belt of Ghana, Ghartey has supported many constituencies in the Western, Central, Greater Accra, and Volta Regions, including Shama, Sekondi Takoradi, Effie Kwasimintsim, Tarkwa, Prestea, Amenfi, Korle Klottey, La-Dade Kotopon and Hohoe.

In 2000, he was a pillar in the Western Regional Presidential Campaign Team of the NPP, travelling the length and breadth of the region with the then-candidate John Agyekum Kufour, who went on to win the general elections in December that year.
Ghartey is currently the NPP Member of Parliament for Essikado/Ketan Constituency in the Western Region of the Republic of Ghana. He was first elected to the seat in the December 2004 elections and was re-elected in both December 2008 and December 2012 elections. In all three elections, he was not contested in the primaries of the NPP to choose the parliamentary candidate for the Constituency.

During the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor, Ghartey was appointed Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Minister of Justice in March 2005. He was soon promoted and appointed the substantive Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in June 2006, a position he held until January 2009 following the electoral loss of the NPP in the 2008 general elections.

Ghartey was the longest serving Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under the Kufuor administration. Joe Ghartey was sworn into office by President Kufuor on 16 June 2006 as the 20th Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Republic of Ghana.

His appointment was a testament to his hard work, brilliance, achievements, and honourable service to the government and people of Ghana. He was another laudable addition to a long line of such distinguished former Ghanaian Attorneys-General as Victor Owusu (1966-1969), and Nana Akuffo-Addo (2001–2003).

As Attorney-General, Ghartey launched an Agenda for Change in the Ministry of Justice. The main aim was to radically improve the effectiveness of the office and impact significantly on all aspects of justice delivery in Ghana. Its flagship program was Justice for All which, among other things, aimed at providing access to the courts for people who had been remanded for long periods without prosecution.

This program saw the release of hundreds of incarcerated persons from custody who had not been prosecuted or convicted but were being held by the State He was known for personally leading his legal teams to court on several high-profile cases. His special interest in Investment Law was evident in the development of the legal framework and infrastructure for the Oil and Gas Industry in Ghana.

Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra

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