{"id":461762,"date":"2018-02-06T04:11:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T04:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/06\/agi-urges-government-to-stop-malpractices-at-the-port\/"},"modified":"2018-02-06T04:11:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T04:11:08","slug":"agi-urges-government-to-stop-malpractices-at-the-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/06\/agi-urges-government-to-stop-malpractices-at-the-port\/","title":{"rendered":"AGI urges government to stop malpractices at the port"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Business News of Tuesday,  6 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>ghananewsagency.org<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-06<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/43621354.295.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Yaw Adu Gyamfi President AGI Group CEO Danpong Group Of Companies 696x465\" title=\"Dr. Yaw Adu Gyamfi President AGI Group CEO Danpong Group Of Companies 696x465\" width=\"295\" height=\"197\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Dr Yaw Adu Gyamfi, President of the AGI<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1517890268_966_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\"> The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has called on government to quickly take steps to stop various trade malpractices and revenue leakages at the ports.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Yaw Adu Gyamfi, the President of the AGI, said hundreds of millions of dollars\u2019 worth of imports continue to slip through the Tema port, especially without proper valuation.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Gyamfi was speaking at a press conference on the irregularities at the ports, which includes under invoicing and under declaration, in Accra.<\/p>\n<p>He commended government for the reforms introduced to ensure efficiency at the ports, seeking to promote manufacturing and competitiveness of the local industry.<\/p>\n<p>He said efforts by government to sanitize port procedures through the recent introduced paperless system and Single Window at the port have come under serious threat from cartels, which continue to wreck the nation.<\/p>\n<p>He said the AGI would continue to endorse the paperless system as a major initiative by government to ease doing business in Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>He said paying taxes was mandatory, yet some criminal minded importers have found cunning ways to evade taxes and duties through the connivance with some revenue officials at the ports.<\/p>\n<p>He said these practices at the ports, which have been perpetrated for years, threaten government\u2019s major policies such as the one district, one factory, as well as plans to create an industrialized economy and reduce unemployment levels in the country.<\/p>\n<p>He said the practices continue to take a heavy toll on their fruit and juice sector, electrical cables, tomatoes paste, canned tuna, cooking oil, biscuits and fast moving consumer goods in general.<\/p>\n<p>The President said in 2016, the Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs Division, missed its annual revenue target by 4.6 percent and out of the GH\u00a2 10.82 billion target in 2016, Customs<\/p>\n<p>only managed to collect GH\u00a210.33 billion, a shortfall of GHC495.84 million. \u201cAlso in 2017, the GRA missed its revenue target by 9 percent, although the Division was tasked to collect GH\u00a213.94 billion for that year, data from the GRA showed that it only managed to collect GH\u00a212.69 billion, representing a shortfall of GH\u00a21.25 billion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He said it was one of the major reasons, why the manufacturing sub-sector, which represented a critical mass of the real sector of the economy, continued to underperform, registering an average growth rate of 1.8 percent over the last four years.<\/p>\n<p>He expressed the hope that government would inaugurate the Ghana International Trade Commission to address some of these malpractices in the system.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kofi Nsiah-Opoku, a member of the AGI, who has been<\/p>\n<p>directly affected, said the situation had compelled him to cut the labour size, to avert a complete shutdown of his business.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 50 updated by: 50 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business News of Tuesday, 6 February 2018 Source: ghananewsagency.org 2018-02-06 Dr Yaw Adu Gyamfi, President of the AGI The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has called on government to quickly take steps to stop various trade malpractices and revenue leakages at the ports. Dr Yaw Adu Gyamfi, the President of the AGI, said hundreds of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":455360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}