5 containers of cigarettes destroyed at Kpone

Five containers fully loaded with Vaquero cigarettes have been destroyed by the Tema Sector Command of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) yesterday at the Kpone landfill site near Tema for not meeting international market requirement.

The 40-footer containers, loaded with nine different flavours of 35,000 cartons valued at GH¢329,225.75, were imported by a certain Peter Nana Kwesi Yeboah Asumani of the Atakora Wild Trade from Canada en route to Burkina Faso on transit in Ghana.

The importer was said to have made some attempts to change the manifest of the goods which was brought into the country in 2012 to be sold in Anglophone countries, although it was manufactured for Francophone countries.

However, no punishment would be slapped on the importer for alleged breach of the regulation. Although the company is registered with the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), it has not been licensed to import cigarette into the country.

Currently in Ghana, only four companies have been approved to import tobacco into the country, namely British American Tobacco Limited, Target Link Limited, Lease Tobacco and Commodities Limited and Rafimes Company.

Samuel Arthur, head of collection in-charge of investigations at Customs, briefing a section of the media at the destruction site, mentioned that though the consignment was declared wholesome to Burkina Faso, no action was taken to clear it since it was imported as a result of attempts to change the description on the brand to home consumption which is illegal.

. “Although they were manifested for transit, ironically the marks were in English so since that time IMSS mounted surveillance on the consignment and customs were alerted that there were indications to change manifest to read home consumption.

“The only problem is that every cigarette on transit to Burkina Faso has a trade marking in French but this was manifested in English, indicating that it was manifested for home consumption,” he explained.

Mr Arthur disclosed that “although the importer somewhere on September 29, 2015 requested to return the goods to Canada, Customs ignored such request because some of the goods have gone bad and he has breached the law.”

The head of investigations at Customs said the destruction of the items was to serve as “a deterrent to others who may be anticipating bringing in goods not meant for Ghana to be sold here.”

The destruction was witnessed by personnel and officials of the FDA, Customs, Ghana Health Service and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).