The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) will focus on customer satisfaction as part of a strategy to meet its revenue target of GH¢146 billion for 2024.
Last year, the authority was tasked to collect GH¢108 billion but although it is yet to put out the total revenue mobilised at the end of last year, it says it exceeded its target significantly.
The focus on customer satisfaction is also to promote voluntary compliance by taxpayers.
The Commissioner-General of the GRA, Rev. Dr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, made this known at the maiden edition of the GRA’s customer experience conference in Accra last Wednesday.
The conference, held on the theme: “Building a growth friendly tax environment”, brought together managers of the authority from across the country and other stakeholders, including selected taxpayers, tax professionals, policymakers, researchers and representatives of international organisations in the area of service delivery in tax collection to deliberate on how to improve service delivery within the GRA.
Among others, the one-day conference was also to examine successful approaches and best practices in promoting voluntary tax compliance from other tax jurisdictions.
It was also to identify barriers and keys to voluntary tax compliance, explore the role of technology in improving tax compliance and facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking among the participants.
Importance of customer service
Rev. Dr Owusu-Amoah said the GRA was committed to providing excellent service delivery, stressing that this was pivotal to voluntary compliance, and that the nation’s economic prosperity hinged on the efficiency and effectiveness of the GRA.
The Commissioner-General urged the managers of the various units of the GRA to encourage their staff to remain professional at all times when dealing with taxpayers and their colleagues.
“This approach, together with employing technology to simplify our processes and procedures, among others, will go a long way in improving GRA’s relationship with taxpayers and foster voluntary tax compliance,” he said.
Survey
In line with enhancing service delivery, Rev. Dr Owusu-Amoah said GRA utilised its website and various social media platforms, which allowed real-time interactions to update taxpayers on tax types, tax reliefs, tax clearance certificates and rights of taxpayers, among others.
A survey conducted by Geopoll with the support of Foreign Commonwealth Development Office in 2022 aimed, among others, to understand the needs of taxpayers to put the overall satisfaction of GRA’s customers as generally high at 71 per cent, the Commissioner-General said.
From the survey, Rev. Dr Owusu-Amoah said, the service delivery elements most important to taxpayers were the user friendliness of GRA’s online and social media platforms, clarity of information communicated by the authority, professionalism of GRA staff and devotion to customer service.
Commendation
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, in a speech read on his behalf by the Director, Revenue Policy Division of the ministry, George Swanzy Winful, commended the management and staff of GRA for working hard to achieve the 2023 revenue target.
He said prioritising customer experience and fostering a positive relationship between taxpayers and the tax administration were key in achieving the GRA’s mission of mobilising revenue for national development.
The minister said his outfit, the driving force behind the GRA, was committed to supporting initiatives that prioritised customer experience and enhanced voluntary compliance.
He also commended the GRA for setting up a Customer Experience Unit to serve as the central point for customer service strategy and interventions across GRA’s operations.
The Head of the Customer Experience Unit of the GRA, Dr Brago Antwi-Agyei, urged managers of the various units of the GRA to serve as customer service role models.
She said data indicated that a satisfied customer was nine times more likely to trust the agency that provided the service.
“We are putting in place a service standard, establishing a culture.
We are shifting the mindset of staff to be oriented towards customers and put the taxpayer at the centre of all that we do in addition to demystifying taxation and simplifying service delivery,” she said.
Dr Antwi-Agyei said so far, some of the key initiatives undertaken by the unit included the development of a service charter which had been reviewed to be released this year, the setting up of a call centre, increased staff engagement and the development of a customer journey mapping to identify the needs of customers for service improvement.
Source: Graphiconline