Officials of the Custom Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority(GRA) at Gonokrom in the Brong-Ahafo Region, had intercepted an articulated track fully loaded with1,356 bags of smuggled rice from Cote D’Ivoire through the Gonokrom border.
Mr David Y Binyam, Chief Revenue Officer and Base Commander of the division who disclosed this on Wednesday said, the timely intervention of the officials prevented the items from being brought into the country.
The Base Commander was speaking at a meeting with Dr. Ekwow Spio – Garbrah, the Minister of Trade and Industry and his team, when they visited officials of the GRA and the Ghana Immigration Service at the Gonokrom border as part of a day’s working visit to the Dormaa Central Municipality.
Mr. Binyam bemoaned the spate of smuggling of rice through the border, and explained that efforts to effectively man the border were being affected by the shortage of staff at the border post.
He, therefore, called for an increase in the staff strength, to vigorously check the nefarious activities of smugglers.
The Chief Collector said there was the need to replicate the co-ordinated border management system at the Aflao and Elubo borders at the Gonokrom border, to expand border activities and operations.
Mr. Binyam added that despite the obstacles confronting the border post, his outfit exceeded its quarterly revenue target by 51 per cent for 2015.
Mr. Jeffrey Anlijah, Assistant Controller of Immigration of the Ghana Immigration Service at Gonokrom, said although they were charged with the duty of facilitating and monitoring activities at the border, with the additional responsibility of patrolling it, their activities were severely challenged due to shortage of logistics.
Dr. Spio – Garbrah was full of praise and admiration for the officers of the Custom Division for exceeding quarterly revenue target for 2015.
He appealed to the officers to brace themselves up for African Union’s vision to have a continental free trade area by 2017, which allowed for free movement of goods and services in African countries.
This, he said, would require acquisition of the necessary training which would make them responsive to the new changes in the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS integration process.
“Although, there would be free movement of goods and services, goods passing through the borders would be checked against the transportation of arms and other illegal items.” he pointed out.
The Minister said the African Union (AU) was supposed to have come up with an African Union passport in the short-term, to facilitate the integration process, but this had not materialized.
Dr. Spio – Garbrah charged the Custom officials to prosecute importers and smugglers for fraudulent activities, such as over – invoicing and under -invoicing of receipts, to bring sanity into the operations of the Division.
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