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Kumasi Rattray park closed down for non-payment of tax
Kumasi Rattray park closed down by GRA for non-payment of tax

Kumasi Rattray park closed down for non-payment of tax

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has closed down the Rattray leisure park in Kumasi for non-payment of tax.

According to the GRA, the park has not been registered for tax purposes since it was opened for commercial activities in June 2015.

According to Graphic Online's Kumasi correspondent, Donald Ato Dapatem, officers from the Asokwa office of the GRA on Friday stormed the park, drove workers and patrons out, closed the gates and sealed it with the commissioners tape.

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) operates the Rattray Park which it constructed as part of efforts to restore Kumasi to its Garden city status. 

Our reporter gathered that officials from the GRA have on numerous occasions made attempts to get the Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive to register the park as a business entity as required by law but they have not been successful. 

It was not clear which tax registration the park had defaulted, whether income or Value Added Tax (VAT).

Attempts by Graphic Online to get the GRA for an explanation was not immediately successful. 

Former KMA boss, Mr Kojo Bonsu who spearheaded the re-development of the park named it after Captain Robert Rattray, a Scottish who was the Assistant Colonial Secretary in the Gold Coast and clerk to the Legislative Assembly of Accra in 1919.

Rattray was a special commissioner and the colonial government anthropologist in Ashanti in 1920, who did a lot of research work on the Ashanti Kingdom and the people of the Gold Coast in a bid to help the government understand the people.

He was also the first man to fly an aircraft (glider) to West Africa, and crash-landed at the site where the recreational centre stands in Kumasi.

The park has a number of facilities, including a fountain, an artificial lake and a restaurant.

Read also: President Mahama inaugurates Rattray Park in Kumasi

 

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