In spite of persistent education by the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on the need for vehicle buyers to crosscheck the authenticity of documents on them before concluding such transactions, most people continue to buy vehicles without heeding this advice.
The CEPS has currently impounded hundreds of such vehicles smuggled into the country. The vehicles are licensed at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) using fake documents and later sold to unsuspecting buyers who then bear the brunt of the law. Through this means, billions of cedis in revenue to the state are lost as the smugglers fail to pay any taxes.
Sources at the service disclosed that CEPS suspects that the practice became very rampant when the ban on the importation of over-aged vehicles was promulgated in 1998 by the previous administration.
Investigations conducted by the paper have revealed that CEPS has seized several hundreds of such smuggled vehicles so far in a special exercise initiated by the Commissioner, Isaac Kofi Opoku-Ntiamoah.
