\nintercepted by officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service
\n(CEPS) at the Golden Jubilee Terminal at the Tema Port. <\/p>\n
Four vehicles suspected to have been stolen from Canada have been
\nintercepted by officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service
\n(CEPS) at the Golden Jubilee Terminal at the Tema Port. <\/p>\n
The vehicles are two Toyota FJ Cruisers, a Nissan Murano and the head of an articulated truck. <\/p>\n
Wrong
\nvehicle particulars on the bill of lading from Canada were provided but
\nnew ones suspected to have been issued by a shipping line in Tema
\nproviding the correct vehicle particulars were presented for clearing
\non arrival. <\/p>\n
According to CEPS officials, the fraudulent deal
\nwas carried out to facilitate the illegal amendment of the manifest in
\norder to circumvent the eventual seizure of the incorrectly manifested
\nvehicles. <\/p>\n
Although they could not provide figures immediately,
\nthe CEPS officials said there was an increase in the importation of
\nstolen vehicles into the country. <\/p>\n
It was established that car
\nstealing syndicates were now changing the chassis numbers of the
\nvehicles from the point of departure to the proper chassis numbers at
\nthe arrival point. <\/p>\n
That was a departure from the old trick of not manifesting the stolen vehicles at all, they said.<\/p>\n
In
\nanother incident, a Bedford truck, with registration number GR 5008 D
\nand loaded with 50 bales of textiles and covered with firewood, has
\nbeen intercepted. <\/p>\n
These came to light when the Minister of
\nFinance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu visited the CEPS
\nHeadquarters to interact with the officials yesterday. <\/p>\n
Senior
\nofficials of CEPS, including Messrs Africanus Owusu-Ansah, P.K.
\nAbebrese and Paul Nkansah, all deputy commissioners, and Ms Annie
\nAnipa, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Public Relations, took
\nturns to brief the minister on what CEPS had been doing to support the
\ngovernment in revenue mobilisation. <\/p>\n
Mr Baah-Wiredu said the
\ngovernment was losing revenue from its incentive package to Ghanaians
\nto mitigate the rising cost of living as a result of fuel and food
\nprice hikes.<\/p>\n
He said it was important that the revenue
\nmobilisation agencies, particularly CEPS, the Internal Revenue Service
\n(IRS) and the Value Added Tax Service, endeavoured to be more efficient
\nin their work. <\/p>\n
He commended officials of CEPS whose vigilance, professionalism and hard work exposed such dubious deals. <\/p>\n
Mr
\nBaah-Wiredu said such commitment to work would send a signal to the
\ninternational community that Ghana was open for genuine business and
\nwould not allow fraudsters to dent its image. <\/p>\n
He appealed to
\nCEPS to publish the list of auctioneers in good standing. He also urged
\nthe service to submit a list of clearing agents in good standing to the
\nvarious Ghanaian missions abroad to help those outside the country to
\ndeal only with accredited agents. <\/p>\n
Mr Baah-Wiredu further
\nadvised that the range of duty to be paid on vehicles, depending on
\ntype, year of manufacture and capacity, should be published in the
\nnewspapers. <\/p>\n
That, he explained, would help importers know what to pay.<\/p>\n
Mr
\nOwusu-Ansah said CEPS would investigate the stolen vehicles matter to
\nestablish the liability of the clearing agent involved in the
\nimportation of the vehicles and deal with the agency, as well as the
\nimporter, if they were found to be culpable. <\/p>\n
He said in the
\npast, the action taken depended on the outcome of the investigations,
\nincluding the payment of the exact duty and a penalty, the confiscation
\nof the vehicle to be later auctioned or allocated to an agency. He said
\noften such vehicles were sent back to the countries of origin if it was
\nestablished that the vehicles were stolen. <\/p>\n
Mr Abebrese said CEPS was collaborating with its international counterparts to expose criminals in the system. <\/p>\n
Credit: Daily Graphic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n