Data protection enforcement and digital VAT lead practice agenda

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) on Monday embarked on an exercise in Accra to enforce data protection requirements and found two hospitals operating with expired data protection certificates, while another health facility had outstanding fees and other compliance issues.

The exercise, which covered institutions in the health, education and financial sectors, formed part of what the Commission described as a “year of enforcement”.

Briefing the press, the Executive Director of the Commission, Dr Arnold Kavaarpuo, said the Commission is no longer relying solely on education and persuasion to secure compliance, 14 years after the passage of the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843).

“We cannot rely indefinitely on education and persuasion alone,” he said, adding that it would be unfair to organisations that had met their legal obligations if others were allowed to disregard the same requirements without consequences.

Dr Kavaarpuo said registration alone did not amount to full compliance with the law.

“An organisation may have a registration certificate and still fail to meet its obligations concerning the collection, use, storage and protection of personal information,” he said.

He said the Commission had recorded 2,575 data controller registrations in 2026, exceeding the annual figures for previous years, but stressed that registration and training must translate into compliance.

Dr Kavaarpuo said officers would verify registration status and examine how organisations collected, processed, stored and protected personal information, as well as the measures in place to safeguard individuals’ rights.

He said the exercise would cover both public and private institutions, adding that government agencies were also accountable under the law.

Dr Kavaarpuo said Section 56 of Act 843 made the processing of personal data without the required registration punishable, upon summary conviction, by a fine, imprisonment for up to two years, or both.

The law also provides for enforcement notices and other regulatory measures. He said the Commission would pursue prosecution where warranted, while ensuring that its actions remained fair, professional and consistent with due process.

“Our primary objective is compliance, not punishment for its own sake, but organisations must understand that the law has consequences,” he said.

He urged organisations to review their compliance status, register where required and renew expired registrations.

In relation to the organisations visited on Monday (October 12, 2026), the Director of Regulatory and Compliance at the Commission, Mr Quintin Akrobotu, said the microfinance company had failed to renew its registration and complete a compliance report sent to it the previous year.

He said representatives of the company were scheduled to report to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, for possible prosecution.

Mr Akrobotu said the two health facilities visited were registered with the Commission, but their certificates had expired.

A third facility, a clinic was also found to have outstanding payments to the Commission and was directed to give a statement to the police.

At the said clinic, Mr Akrobotu said the facility had not appointed a Data Protection Supervisor and had unpaid fees dating back to at least January 2025.

He said the clinic had not conducted a privacy impact assessment of the electronic health system used to store patient records and lacked adequate organisational and technical measures to protect personal information.

The Commission expressed concern that the clinic was collecting sensitive information without the required arrangements and oversight to protect it.

Mr Akrobotu said the inspections would continue into 2027 and cover other sectors, including religious institutions and the media.

He advised the public to check whether institutions collecting their personal information held valid data protection certificates.

He warned that failure to comply with data protection requirements could expose personal information to misuse, including sale to third parties and use in scams.

Commercial banks are preparing to apply 20 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) to payments for cross-border digital services and e-commerce transactions made with cards issued in Ghana, according to information gathered by Joy Business.

The banks say they are implementing a directive from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA). However, Joy Business has yet to establish the details of the directive or whether any banks have already begun applying the tax.

Standard Chartered Bank has notified its customers by email that it will begin applying the 20 per cent VAT to payments for cross-border digital services made with its Ghana-issued cards from October 15, 2026.

According to the bank, the move is in line with GRA requirements.

Information gathered by Joy Business suggests that the tax could cover payments across the following categories. The full scope and treatment of individual services are yet to be confirmed:

Customers paying for affected services with debit or credit cards issued in Ghana should expect the 20 per cent VAT to be added to the amount payable.

Some commercial banks have stressed that the additional cost is a tax imposed under GRA requirements, rather than a fee introduced by the banks.

For affected transactions, customers could therefore pay the service price, the applicable VAT and any existing bank transaction charges.

The convicted former Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, has pleaded not guilty to five charges in the GH¢30 million alleged fraud case involving the Ghana Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank).

He pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding by false pretence, two counts of forged document, money laundering and intentionally causing financial loss to a public body when he appeared before the Accra High Court on October 13, 2026.

The pleas were taken after the court presided over by Justice Halimah El-Alawa Abdul-Baasit approved the substitution of the charge sheet filed on May 15, 2026, with an amended charge sheet filed on September 22, 2026.

The prosecution, led by a Principal State Attorney, Joshua Sackey, told the court that Mr Antwi-Boasiako is standing trial alongside Thomas Antwi-Boasiako, who is at large, and Wontumi Farms Limited over an alleged financial loss of more than GH¢30 million to Exim Bank.

He prayed for the earlier charge sheet to be withdrawn and substituted.

Counsel for the accused persons, Samuel Atta Akyea, did not oppose the application.

The amendment specifies that the pro-forma invoice allegedly used to obtain GH¢4 million from Exim Bank was issued by EPSONS GHANA LIMITED.

The prosecution alleges that the document was used with the intention of defrauding officials of the bank.

Following the pleas, Mr Atta Akyea prayed the court to admit his client to bail, arguing that the dispute was civil in nature.

Counsel also drew the court's attention to the fact that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) had previously granted his client bail.

The court adjourned the case to October 27, 2026, at 11 a.m. for the commencement of the Case Management Conference.

Mr Antwi-Boasiako is standing trial alongside Thomas Antwi-Boasiako [at large] and Wontumi Farms Limited over an alleged financial loss of more than GH¢30 million to Exim Bank.

The prosecution alleges that Antwi-Boasiako and Thomas Antwi-Boasiako obtained GH¢14.302 million from the bank in 2018 through false pretences.

The case also concerns an allegedly forged document presented to the bank in connection with the purchase of agricultural machinery and allegations of money laundering and causing financial loss to the state.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, has told Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the Board does not trade in foreign exchange and only sells forex generated through its statutory gold operations.

Mr Gyamfi said the Board was established under the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140), with a mandate to generate foreign exchange for Ghana and support the Bank of Ghana's gold reserve accumulation.

"The Gold Board does not trade currency. The word trade means or connotes the buying and selling of a commodity. The Gold Board does not buy currency," he told the Committee on Tuesday, October 13, 2026.

He explained that, unlike licensed foreign exchange dealers who buy and sell currencies, the Board sells only the foreign exchange generated through its statutory operations.

"We only sell effects that we generate from our statutory functions. And that is grounded on Section 2B of the Ghana Gold Board Act, which mandates us to generate foreign exchange," he said.

Mr Gyamfi said selling the foreign exchange generated through its operations was necessary to fulfil the Board's mandate, as the proceeds provide the cedis needed to purchase gold. He added that the Board operates within a foreign exchange market regulated by the Bank of Ghana.

The Board's CEO disclosed that it wrote to the central bank on September 23, 2026, seeking guidance and authorisation for its funding model after obtaining policy approval from the Minister of Finance. "I'm happy to inform the committee that the Bank of Ghana has given us that guidance and authorisation," he said.

The issue arose when the Chairperson of the Committee, Mrs Abena Osei Asare, questioned whether the Board trades in foreign currency and whether it holds a Bank of Ghana licence to do so.

Mr Gyamfi maintained that the Board does not trade in foreign exchange as a commodity, explaining that it generates foreign exchange through its operations and sells the proceeds to the central bank and commercial banks in exchange for cedis to finance gold purchases.

"The GoldBod does not trade currency. The word trade means, or connotes the buying and selling of a commodity. The GoldBod does not buy currency. The GoldBod was established by Act 1140 to generate foreign exchange for the country. So we are a major foreign exchange earner for Ghana. And so when we generate that foreign exchange, we need to make it available to the country. That is, make it available to the central bank, make it available to the commercial banks. And so that is the context within which we sell," he said.

Mr Gyamfi said the Board wrote to the Bank of Ghana on September 23 after securing policy approval for its funding model from the Finance Minister, in line with Section 12 of the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140). He said the central bank provided guidance and authorisation for the foreign exchange sales.

Committee members requested a copy of the correspondence to establish whether that authorisation amounted to a formal licence.

Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament, has declared that the independence of parliamentary legal advice is not a technical detail but a democratic imperative.

As a result, he has charged Legal Counsel to Parliaments across Africa that their ultimate loyalty was to Parliament as a constitutional institution and not to any political party or individual.

Opening the 8th Africa Colloquium of Legal Counsel to Parliaments in Accra on Tuesday, he described legislative counsel and drafters as the quiet and indispensable architects of constitutional democracy.

The Speaker made the remarks in a speech read his behalf by Reverend Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror, the Clerk to Parliament.

He said politics was both a privilege and a profound institutional responsibility, and that they met not as isolated delegations, but as custodians of a shared constitutional aspiration and as joint architects of Africa’s democratic future.

The Colloquium, hosted by the Parliament of Ghana from Monday, October 12 to Friday, October 16, 2026, on the theme: “Ethics, Integrity and Legal Accountability,” had brought together legal counsels from across the continent, to review 15 years of the Nairobi Principles.

Speaking on impartiality, the Speaker said whether Parliament served the public or the powerful hinges on the independence of its legal advice: “Political eloquence alone has never built a durable nation, ordered national affairs or protected citizens from state overreach. That is where your work begins.”

He stated that although parliamentary legal practice began with impartiality, it did not mean indifference.

“It does not require counsel to feign neutrality or to pretend that all legal arguments are equally valid. It requires professional judgement without affection, ill-will, or partisan instruction,” he stated.

Quoting the judicial oath to do right to all manner of people without fear or favour, affection or ill-will, he said that is the standard for parliamentary legal services.

“Your advice must remain honest, even when it is unwelcome. A legal opinion that is welcomed by the majority may be correct. A legal opinion that frustrates the majority may also be correct. The test is not whether an advice pleases the institution at a particular moment, but it is whether it is legally written, professionally defensible, constitutionally sound and institutionally responsible,” he said.

He was emphatic on where loyalty must lie, saying “Your professional loyalty must not be reduced to the interest of the majority party or the minority part, nor should it be understood as personal loyalty to an individual presiding officer.

Your ultimate responsibility is to the institution of Parliament, the Constitution, and the public interest that Parliament exists to serve. In practical terms, your client is not a party nor a person. Your client is a constitutional institution,” he stressed.

He said such responsibility required moral courage to tell leadership that a policy objective may be commendable, but the law had not been properly crafted.

“Such advice is not disloyalty. It is the essence of constitutional responsibility,” he added.

On Integrity, the Speaker said it was more than the absence of impropriety; it was fidelity to truth, law, duty and institutional purpose.

He warned that Parliamentary counsel must resist the temptation to use legal reasoning to disguise political convenience, saying advice must not be shaped merely to produce the preferred answer.

The Speaker further cautioned members against selectively commissioning legal opinions until a favourable conclusion was obtained, noting that where one opinion flagged serious risks on a fast-tracked Bill affecting fundamental rights and another indicated that the risk was manageable, presenting only the second opinion to leadership does not serve the law, but amounted to short-circuiting it.

Touching on accountability and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Speaker charged counsel to subject every Bill, amendment, application for constitutional validation, Private Member’s bill and subsidiary legislation to objective and analytically consistent scrutiny, regardless of political interest.

“Every Bill drafted, every amendment written and every item of subsidiary legislation reviewed will have an encounter in the real world. In drafting, lack of precision creates ambiguity. In subsidiary legislation, absence of quality control means executive agencies may exercise powers Parliament never intended to confer,” he said.

He explained that accountability meant being prepared to say in writing when a law was likely to be challenged, when delegation was too broad, or when procedure may not survive judicial review, and that parliamentary legal services themselves must be subject to codes of conduct, integrity training, annual reports, and transparent quality assurance.

“We cannot demand accountability from the executive while insulating parliamentary legal services from legitimate institutional scrutiny,” he said.

He warned that AI may assist in research and drafting but introduced risks of confidentiality breach, fabricated authorities, hidden biases, and weak audit trails.

“Technology may accelerate the preparation of legislation, but it cannot determine whether the process is just, whether discretion is excessive or whether the legal framework will protect the vulnerable or empower the predator. That responsibility remains human,” he said.

He therefore charged the Colloquium to adopt principles ensuring that no authority is drafted by AI that no human has reviewed; no draft is uploaded to insecure systems, and every use of AI can be audited.

Proposing a forward agenda, the Speaker, urged delegates to strengthen respect for each country’s constitutional position, establish minimum standards on conflict of interest and confidentiality, institutionalise quality assurance through plain language drafting and post-legislative review, adopt a protocol for responsible AI use, and invest in continuous professional development.

“You are guardians of constitutional boundaries, protectors of public resources and custodians of the legal processes through which citizenship can be lived with dignity and confidence,” he charged.

“When you leave this court, let your measure not be how much was passed but how clearly it was written, how fairly it was processed and how justly it will operate,” he added.

Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, urged Legal Counsel to Parliaments across Africa to use the ongoing 8th Africa Colloquium to develop practical protocols on the use of AI and the handling of improper instructions.

“I urge you to take advantage of these days to share how our respective offices handle improper instructions, work towards a practical protocol for the use of AI in legislative work, give the principles a measurable self-assessment and strengthen training and mentorship for the next generation of legislative counsel,” he said.