Customs Blows Whistle

The Senior Staff Association of the Customs Excise and Preventive Services (SSACEPS) has once more blown the whistle over anomalies at most entry points to the country and has reiterated its position on the need for vigilance by calling on the government to rectify the situation to curtail revenue leakages which are running into the hundreds of millions of cedis annually.

At a SSACEPS conference in Kumasi on November 23, Mr. George Kwapong, National Chairman of the Association urged government to allow CEPS regain control over customs valuation at the entry points.

In a statement to open the conference, Mr. Kwapong said at the moment the traditional function of customs valuation of imported goods has been surrendered to private companies like the Gateway Services Limited (GSL) and the Ghana Standard Veritas Bureau (GSVB), which have built the Transactional Price Database (TPD) to apply the WTO valuation agreement.

According to Mr. Kwapong, notwithstanding the acquisition of the TPD information technology, "it is an open secret that between 90-95 percent of all invoices presented by traders are either fake or fictitious, resulting in the GSL issuing low values in their Final Classification and Valuation Reports (FCVR) without challenge from CEPS."

"This situation constitutes a major revenue leakage," he told the conference which also included members of other revenue collecting agencies.

Kwapong lamented that up till now CEPS has not been able to build its own Transactional Price Database and has to rely on the GSL and GSVB for customs valuation.

He said at the Tema Harbour for instance, the Chief Collector Outdoor (CCOD) is using a computer supplied by GSL with the Transactional Price Database also supplied by the same GSL.

This, he said has opened the way for clearing agents to resort to the CCOD for the determination of disputes anytime CEPS officers challenge the Final Classification and Valuation Reports of importers.

Mr. Kwapong made a shocking revelation that while Internet and fax facilities are wasting away at the CEPS Headquarters, Tema and Takoradi Habours and the Kotoka International Airport, which collect a huge chunk of the country's revenue, lack these facilities to make on the spot challenge of suspicious values.

"Again we call on our management to computerise the Car Park Branch to ensure easy flow of information and work." He called for information on cars to be installed on the computer database for easy reference.

He said the current practice where the values of cars are restricted to some particular officers creates congestion and opens the system up to corruption.

A communiqu? issued at the end of the conference urged CEPS management to demystify the Transactional Database by distributing it to the various stations to ensure uniformity in the application of values for effective revenue mobilisation.

The communiqu? also called on management to review the current practice where CEPS collects 1 percent fee for GSBV at the frontiers without reimbursement.

The communiqu? pointed out that the Destination Inspection Scheme is still fraught with inconsistencies in classification and unrealistic values, resulting in revenue leakages.

The issue of GSL and GSVB is highly contentious. When The Accra Mail ventured into that area with a few exposes three and a half months ago, GSL hired a firm of top Accra lawyers to ask for a retraction and payment of a ?200 million retraction penalty.

CEPS senior officers have never hidden their suspicions of the activities of GSL and GSVB, but one year into the tenure of the NPP government, the Ministry of Trade has been studiously silent on their activities.