The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has vowed to seize all uncustomed cars in the country.
Since the beginning of the year, 244 of such cars have been seized. Last year, 754 cars were seized across the country.
Owners of the cars have 80 days ultimatum to pay the right duties or lose the cars to the state.
According to the Commissioner General for the GRA, Emmanuel Kofi Nti, many of the cars enter the country through the Temporary Vehicle Import (TVI) thus are quickly detected.
“The normal thing is for them to come in for like a 6 months period and then they go back but they end up in the market and there is a bit of a collusion and the rest that take place to get the vehicle registered.”
He added that, the development contributes to government losing huge revenue.
“We are able to track as many as 754 vehicles. On each vehicle, assuming we got 10,000 cedis that will mean 7.54 million.”
An eight-member task force hit the streets Monday morning on a special operation to seize uncustomed vehicles.
The leader of the taskforce, Deputy Commissioner Alhaji Siedu Iddrisu told Starr Business’ Osei Owusu Amankwaah that, just about 10 percent of owners of the seized cars are able to pay the duties on the cars.
He added that, 90 percent of owners of the seized cars are not aware it is uncustomed.
He said some unscrupulous people have made it their modus operandi to take advantage of the ECOWAS free Trade to smuggle cars from neighbouring countries, especially Togo – with a free port; into Ghana.
He, however, cautioned vehicle buyers to check with the customs division of the GRA to ascertain if the duties on the car has been paid before they make any payment to the seller.
