90% of duty invoices at ports are fake - financial consultant

Mr G. Kudzo Akpabey, a financial consultant says 90% of invoices on which duty should be collected at Ghana's ports, are fake.

He said the five Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) currently operating at the ports in Ghana had been the bane of the nation’s revenue losses to the detriment of its economic development.


Mr Akpabey, who made the remarks during a press conference in Accra on Monday, said the DICs had outlived their usefulness and called for their abolition. He said the inability of these companies to detect falsified documents at the ports had led to huge financial losses through the tax evasion by importers, exporters and clearing agents.


Mr Akpabey stated that if the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the DICs were living up the task; the government should be in a position to pay all workers under the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).


said this would have enabled the government to pay at least monthly salary of GH¢1,000.00 per worker. He said due to revenues going down the drains through tax evasion and cover-ups; government would always go borrowing from banks.

Mr Akpabey said Ghana did not have “the revenue eyes”; and he called on President John Dramani Mahama to give due attention to the ports in order to salvage the situation.


Mr Akpabey urged the media to take the issue of tax evasion and cover-ups very serious for the economic benefit of the nation. He said he was doing his duty as a citizen in line with Article 41 (f) of the 1992 Constitution.


Mr Akpabey made an appeal to the striking members of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) to reconsider their decision and go back to the classroom, while government tries to solve their problem.