The American Chamber of Commerce, Ghana lauds the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) for the launch and implementation of the Tax Stamp Policy which is aimed at addressing the counterfeiting of products on the Ghanaian market and to improve revenue generation of the Government. As a member-driven organization, the Chamber and its members acknowledge and support Government’s goal of raising revenue and stopping the constant counterfeit products being dumped onto our markets.

However, members of the Chamber who are in the beverage manufacturing sector have encountered challenges in implementing the Tax Stamp Policy and would like to appeal to the Government for more time. The main challenge is that these beverage producers need to acquire and install specialized machinery to fix these stamps on their products. The companies would have to import the tax stamp fixing machines and would need some grace period to allow the machines to be shipped, cleared and installed in their current factory lines.

As of the writing of this paper, beverage producers who are members of the Chamber are unable to sell their products due to their inability to fix the Tax Stamps and this is likely to affect their business and jobs of almost a 1000 people.

The Chamber acknowledges that some of its Members have had series of engagements with the Ministry of Finance and GRA to discuss these challenges and would be very grateful that this request for a grace period is considered by the tax authority.

The American Chamber of Commerce is a strong advocate for the President’s Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda and is committed to support the Government to improve the efficiency of revenue administration and collect taxes to help Ghana achieve its development objectives.