Customs Officers trained on how to detect fraudulent documents

Detection of fraudulent documents submitted by clearing agents to officials of the customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority has been identified has a major challenge to the customs division.

Some traders and clearing agents are said to be presenting fake and altered documents for the clearance of their goods ostensibly to evade taxes which leads to the state loosing huge revenues.

To help resolve this challenge, West Blue Consulting, the technical support providers of the customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority has organized a one day training session for customs officers.

The training which is part of the capacity building initiatives for customs officers is to equip them with the necessary skills and techniques to detect fraudulent documents and how best they can be able to reject some of the invoices and documents being presented to them.

The Training Manager of West Blue, Ransford Mensah said the training which forms part of the Ghana National Single Window project will equip custom officers with the right skills to be able to detect fraudulent documents and also to be able to facilitate their work better and generate revenue for the country.

“This training is basically to equip custom officers with the right skill to be able to detect fraudulent document and also to be able to facilitate their work better to generate revenue for the country,” he said.

The facilitator of the training, Kofi Danquah who himself has been a customs officer for so many years stressed the need for traders and clearing agents to be well educated on the need to submit genuine documents.

“The problem is the traders should first be educated, they don’t know that they have to support their document, if they know at all, nobody is checking them but they have to be brought down and told that they have to use the prescribed document to support their documents.

He called on customs officers to reject fictitious documents since they have the backing of the law to do so.

“We have told them the law which gives them the power to reject fictitious documents,” he said.