PRESIDENT MAHAMA ORDERED TWENTY PERCENT TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES WAIVER FOR POLITICAL GAIN
PRESIDENT MAHAMA ORDERED THE TWENTY PERCENT TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES (TCS) WAIVER FOR POLITICAL GAIN.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
President Mahama ordered his Minister of Finance, Ato Forson, and the NDC super majority in Parliament to approve the Ghana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) former Commissioner-General Julie Essiam’s unlawful addendum granting Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) of India a 20 percent withholding tax exemption from 1 January 2025 until the end of the contract period because upon assumption of office he saw the international relations and diplomacy benefits that were going to accrue to the government’s family, friends and cronies by giving constitutional endorsement to the same contract and tax waiver that had been objected to and touted as a controversial addendum when NDC was in opposition. The NPP had lost out on those benefits by miserably losing the 7 December 2025 elections and it was now the turn of the NDC to eat.
The Minister for Finance was, therefore, being economical with the truth when he described the agreement between the Government of Ghana (GoG) (represented by the Ministry of Finance and the GRA) and Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) which was approved by Parliament on Tuesday 18 November 2025 as a correction of an earlier addendum between the parties signed by the NPP’s GRA last Commissioner-General, Julie Essiam.
The addendum signed by the Commissioner-General of the GRA on behalf of GoG on 4 November 2024 was void ab initio in accordance with Articles 181(1), (2), (3) and (5) as an international business or economic transaction to which GoG was a party because it was not entered into with the prior authorization of Parliament and was not subsequently laid before the last Parliament to have enabled it to come into operation after it was approved by Parliament.
Ato Forson admits that Julie Essiam entered into that agreement with TCS on behalf of the GoG in questionable circumstances after TCS had failed to win a competitive bid and the Central Tender Review Committee had rejected TCS’ bid twice. As the minority leader in the last (8) Parliament Ato Forson knew that the addendum signed by Julie Essiam was not witnessed nor was the legal department of the GRA and the Board privy to her signing the contract with TCS on behalf of GoG. There was no evidence that the then Minister for Finance gave prior approval to her to enter into and sign the controversial addendum.
Ato Forson also admits that upon assuming the position of the Minister for Finance he instructed the GRA to renegotiate the financial terms of the contract, given that the procurement process had been “truncated” under the previous administration, adding that the renegotiation yielded substantial savings for the State.
The void addendum to the contract signed by Julie Essiam was not binding on GOG under the Constitution and could not be renegotiated. Ato Forson was, therefore, being disingenuous and dishonest when he told Parliament that the waiver of a 20% withholding tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) on the income of TCS, amounting to approximately $10.46 million contained in the addendum signed by Julie Essiam was a correction of that addendum signed between GoG acting by GRA and TCS.
Ato Forson took Ghanaians for unthinking people without any sense of discernment when he told Parliament that: “Mr. Speaker, my principle still holds. My position on tax exemptions is unwavering. Everyone knows my views about tax exemptions. But this is an agreement that was signed by the Ghana Revenue Authority, imposing an obligation on the people of Ghana.”
The position of the NDC while in opposition when Julie Essiam signed her unauthorized and void addendum was that it opposed tax exemptions in the circumstances she negotiated the agreement. The reason Ato Forson changed his mind and instructed what he calls a “renegotiation of the controversial Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) agreement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)”, that he boastfully told Parliament secured Ghana savings of more than US$9 million, was because President Mahama and his government were now the beneficiaries of the international relations that the previous government tried to establish through diplomacy with the Indian Government in awarding the contract to TCS.
Once now in power, President Mahama and his government also came to appreciate the personal and political benefits derivable from the controversial contract as they had referred to it from the point of view of internation relations and diplomacy with the Indian Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has had a long standing association with the Tata Group of India of which TCS was a subsidiary. (The reader should conduct a google search if he doubts Modi’s relationship with Tata). Julie Essiam, who has been condemned for saddling Ghana with what was a void addendum, I believe, did what she did under pressure from the Nana Akufo-Addo Government for reasons of reciprocal beneficial international relationship and diplomacy with India.
One would not have been able to justify the about turn the NDC was making from a minority party in opposition objecting to the tax waiver to a majority party in Government in favour of granting it without a bait of a sort to be dangled before the gullible Ghanaian electorate of the savings of more than US$9 million Ato Forson boasted about to Parliament.
The approval by Parliament on Tuesday 18 November 2025 of a waiver of a 20% withholding tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) on the income of TCS, amounting to approximately $10.46 million was made on a contract adopted and renegotiated by President Mahama’s government based solely on the benefits accruable to the family, friends, and cronies of the government and the reciprocal diplomatic and international relationship capital to be gained from the transaction for the Ghanaian and Indian governments.
Anybody who thinks that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ghana did not involve discussion of Ghana-Indian business relationship is naive about the use to which international relationship and diplomacy is used by ruling regimes to service their supporting business partners and political parties. What are the reasons for including businessmen and men of industry as members of delegation accompanying heads of states and governments on diplomatic visits to friendly countries? Deal making and negotiations beneficial to the Governments are the reasons.
The Minister of Finance, Ato Forson’s argument that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had classified the ITAS implementation as a structural benchmark and recognised the software as good and beneficial as a reason for implementing the 20 percent tax exemption is a red herring. The IMF does not interfere with national constitutions or procurements laws and the choice of specified service providers.
Parliament had to rubber stamp the otherwise controversial contract because when Mills/Mahama government assisted their cronies to create, loot and share the public purse I challenged the loot and succeeded in the case of Amidu v Attorney-General, Waterville, & Woyome (popularly known as the Woyome case) in which the Supreme Court declared the agreement which had not been approved by Parliament as unconstitutional and void.
I tried to formally confirm the validity of the contract upon which, and the procedure by which, Parliament on 18 November 2025 allegedly approved the waiver of a 20% withholding tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) on the income of TCS, amounting to approximately $10.46 million, without success. The main contract and addenda are not available to the public upon a search on the GRA, Ministry of Finance, and Parliamentary websites and my inquiries from Members of Parliament form both sides drew blanks. I also formally sought for the Finance Committee Report on the waiver of the 20% withholding tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) on the income of TCS and could not access one.
Be that what it may, in pursuit of accountability and transparency in governance demanded by the 1992 Constitution, these facts will one day be formally available as it did in the Woyome case and We-the-People can once more confirm whether this is also another create, loot, and share transaction or otherwise. When the government becomes transparent and accountable by making publicly available the instructions issued to GRA to renegotiate the controversial contract and addendum, the Attorney-General’s opinion on it, and the cabinet approval of the tax waiver for submission to Parliament, the doubting Thomas’ will come to understand the impact of international relations and diplomacy on domestic agreement when foreign entities are involved.
Ghana is not President Mahama’s Animal Farm or fiefdom or Ato Forson’s private security company that he ran while sojourning in the UK for the government to think that We-the-People are unthinking beasts. Ghana is a Fourth Republic governed under the 1992 Constitution in which the people are sovereign and supreme as we demonstrated to the Akufo-Addo government when we booted them out on 7 December 2024. We-the-People can never be taken for granted by the governments we elect all the time! The 1992 Constitution obligates me as a citizen of Ghana to defend it to ensure transparency and accountability as part of our democracy and rule of law. The truth will out!
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
23 November 2025.