The Accra Mall, one of the biggest shopping centres in the capital, risks closure today November 29 if managers of the facility fail to settle over GHC2 million debt owed the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in taxes.
Officials of the GRA are currently on the premises of the Accra Mall to retrieve a total of GHC2,306,625 from the management, which is made up of under-declared tax plus penalties.
“The GRA is at the mall to retrieve the money or close the mall,” TV3’s Ebenezer Agyekum Boateng reports from the scene where revenue officials are in talks with management of the Mall.
Our correspondent reports that after initial discussions, management of the Mall moved to a Stanbic Bank to process a banker’s draft and present same to the revenue officials.
In the event the draft doesn’t go through, our correspondent reports that the revenue officials at the Mall will have no choice but to close down the Mall.
Managers of the Mall were given notices in September and October 2017 to settle the amount but failed to comply, a situation that forced revenue officials to besiege the mall Wednesday morning to close down the shopping centre.
According to revenue officials, a tax audit conducted on the Mall revealed that managers under-declared their tax obligations between 2013 and 2015. They were thus served with notice to pay the under-declared amount plus penalty for the period which amounted to GHC2,306,625.
But efforts to get the management of the mall to settle the amount have proved futile.
Today’s action by the GRA forms part of national exercise to retrieve all taxes owed the State by companies in the country.
The Accra Mall, which was the first large-scale shopping centre to be commissioned in Ghana on
July 4, 2008, has 20,000 square metres of retail space with parking for over 900 cars.
It accommodates more than 65 line-shops of which 30 per cent are said to be operated by Ghanaian retailers.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana
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