Dodging Duty Payment With A Common Letter .....

.... From NDC Chairman To CEPS Commissioner?

Is that a new method of stealing from the Tema Port?

Since when in the history of Ghana can an ordinary Chairman of a ruling party write just a letter to the CEPS Commissioner for somebody to escape duty payment of a confiscated imported good?

Is this corruption or “a better Ghana” agenda for only NDC members?

The CEPS will seizes goods from importers and give it for free to NDC members per a letter from an NDC ordinary Chairman to the CEPS Commissioner? Oh! Come on! This is very bad and cheating on Ghanaian people especially importers.

According to DAILY GUIDE the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) is allegedly releasing confiscated motorbikes and cars to some constituency chairmen of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for distribution to selected party members and foot-soldiers.

While one of such NDC chairmen is in trouble for having received six of such motorbikes but kept them as his personal property, DAILY GUIDE has seen a couple of documents in which government has allegedly written to the CEPS Commissioner that some more motorbikes should be released for NDC party work.

The NDC Chairman for Dome Kwabenya constituency, Alhaji Abdul Basit Mohammed, who was recently given six of such motorbikes purposely for party work, is currently being chased by his party members after reports went round that he had sold all six bikes and pocketed the money.

When DAILY GUIDE contacted Alhaji Basit Mohammed, he confessed that it was the Municipal Chief Executive of the Ga East Municipal Assembly, John Quao Sackey, who gave him a letter to be delivered to the CEPS Commissioner so six motorbikes would be released to him for party work.

Alhaji Basit explained however that he did not give the bikes to the party because he had imported some six motorbikes but they got seized by CEPS officials so the Municipal Chief Executive forged the said letter for him so he could use it to get back his seized bikes.

The chairman said it was the same imported bikes that were confiscated that were eventually released to him so there was no sense in releasing them to the party. He promised to provide some documents to show that indeed he had imported some six motorbikes but they got confiscated by CEPS officials.

The NDC chairman conceded that though the wording of the letter said the bikes were to be used for party work, that information was only put there by John Quao Sackey to help him clear his seized bikes.

The letter that was addressed to the CEPS Commissioner was written on the official letterhead of the Ga East Municipal Assembly and signed by its Chief Executive on January 12, 2010.

What I want to ask is: Must the police in Ghana arrest anybody at all for (any) wrong doing or contradicting to the laws?

If the answer should be yes then all the people involved in this very corruption and cheating case must be arrested.

The country is not a property of any Political Party, this must be clear to all the politicians in the Country, irrespective of their parties, and must therefore not be used as a party's bona fide property.

While some people are paying unreasonable duties others are either claiming their goods for free or collecting the confiscated goods from other people for free.

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg – Germany)