Niger, Bawku crisis fallout: Revenue shortfall hits UE/R; Customs Sector Commander laments

The military coup in Niger and the Bawku communal conflict is having a toll on revenue mobilisation in the Upper East Region, the Bolgatanga Sector Commander of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Assistant Commissioner of Customs (AC) Samuel Owusu, has disclosed.

He said the closure of the Niger border and restrictions on movement in and around Bawku due to the conflict was impeding the importation of major food commodities into the country.

That, he said, had dealt a huge blow to revenue mobilisation at the various border crossings into the Upper East Region.

The phenomenon, according to him, had made the Upper East Region miss its revenue target for the first half of the year.

The Upper East Region Customs Division of the GRA made GH¢17, 707,749.08 in the first half of the year of 2023, against the target of GH¢18, 609,062.00, creating a revenue shortfall of GH¢1, 988,713.76 in the first half of the year (January-June 2023).

AC Owusu said the region last year raked in revenue of GH¢27, 606,531.07 against the target of GH¢22,960,000.00, resulting in revenue excess of GH¢44, 646,531.07.

He said revenue of GH¢27, 606,531.07 collected last year represented an increase of 20.24- percent of the target set for the year.

“There is a negative impact of the Niger coup on the revenue drive here because we deal with import that comes from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and all these countries have their issues with coups,” AC Owusu stated.

“Indeed, the coup in Niger is affecting us. When foodstuffs like onions come through the borders, we get revenue. Our hands are tied, we don’t have any way of manoeuvring when goods don’t come, so we only pray the situation in Niger is normalised”.

According to him, he said the commodity was routed to the region through unapproved routes, and customs could not track and bill traders.

The Bolga Sector Commander further said the coup in Niger had driven the prices up.

“The coup in Niger makes it difficult for people to transport their produce through our borders. Onions from Niger cannot be transported to Ghana, and this has affected prices of the commodity on the market,” the Sector Commander stated during an exclusive interview with the Ghanaian Times on the impact of the Niger coup and the Bawku conflict on revenue mobilisation at the borders.

AC Owusu said the future looked bleak for the revenue mobilisation drive in the region, as many traders in the region relied heavily on onions from Niger whose borders had been closed to neighbouring countries, such as Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, to mention just a few.

On the Bawku chieftaincy conflict, he said businessmen and women in the eastern enclave had stopped travelling to Cinkassey in neighbouring Togo and some parts of Burkina Faso to do business following targeted gun attacks that had reportedly claimed many lives.

He said the situation had rendered the Missiga, Mognori, and Kulungungu borders redundant as no goods “were coming in and going out”.

AC Owusu, pleaded with parties in the conflict to put the development of Bawku first and come to a compromise to end the impasse, as that would contribute massively to recovering missed revenue targets in the region.

Meanwhile, when the Ghanaian Times visited the Bolgatanga Central Business Market to check the prices of onions, it was observed that the prices of the product had gone up.

A bowl of onion called ‘olonka’ which used to be sold at GH¢30 at the market was now being sold at GH¢100.00.