Tourism Authority recovers outstanding levy arrears

Kumasi, Oct. 7, GNA - The Monitoring and Evaluation Team of the Tourism Development Fund Secretariat has declared its determination to recover all outstanding arrears in respect of the payment of the Tourism Levy by tourist facility operators.

Mr. Abraham Tetteh, the Fund Administrator, said it had so far recovered a total of GH¢140,000.00 being outstanding arrears in the payment of the Tourism Levy by some operators in the Ashanti Region.

This, he said, was realized from the Team's ongoing monitoring and evaluation exercise in the Region, where more than 150 facilities are expected to be evaluated.

So far, about 70 tourism facility operators had been evaluated to check their compliance in the payment of the one per cent Levy designed by the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) to further develop the tourism sector.

Briefing the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the exercise in Kumasi, Mr. Tetteh said the objective was to assess the accuracy of collections and payments by tourist facilities.

It was also to ascertain the challenges the facilities faced in the collection of the Levy, and offer advice to them for effective collection and payment.

The Administrator said the Team's field visits so far to some of the registered and certified tourism establishments had revealed the reluctance of many of the facility operators to pay the Levy as required by law.

'We are for now, giving all defaulters a grace period to pay all outstanding arrears, and will soon begin to apply the necessary sanctions as per the law for those who cheat the system', he noted.

Mr. Tetteh said in the course of the exercise the Team looks out for income statement, daily cash book and records, visitors' registration book, records of the one per cent levy collections and payments sine certified, as well as records of Value Added Tax and National Health Insurance Levy payments by the operators. GNA