53% imported cars use fake documents

Investigations have revealed that about 53 per cent of vehicles registered in the country use fictitious documents.

Mr Hopeson Nyaxo, chief internal auditor of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service, disclosed this in Accra last Friday at a forum on tax amnesty and said ?The number of vehicles on our roads on which duties have not been paid is alarming.?

?Such vehicles are fraudulently registered without payment of appropriate duties and taxes,? he said, adding that in some instances, signatures of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and CEPS officials were forged on fake registration documents.

The Customs, Exercise and Preventive Service is providing a tax amnesty for vehicle owners and importers, who have evaded tax, to voluntarily prevent themselves and regularize their tax obligations.

This is in line with the tax amnesty recently announced in the 2006 national budget by the finance and economic planning minister.

Mr Nyaxo said the aim is to give opportunity to vehicle owners who may not know that their documents are fake, to verify and thereby eliminate the incidence of illegal registration of vehicles.