Customs destroys illegal cigarettes
Large quantities of cigarettes confiscated by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authourity (GRA) were yesterday destroyed at the Kpone landfill site.
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A task force including personnel of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Ghana Standards Authourity (GSA), supervised the destruction of the cigarettes, which were seized in 2012.
Although the final destination of the GH¢330,000 worth of cigarettes imported from Canada was Burkina Faso, the importers, Attakora World Trading Company, had no authorisation permit from the FDA and the GSA to bring the cigarettes.
The destruction was funded by the Industries and Market Support Systems (IMSS), agents for British American Tobacco, one of the four licensed tobacco importers and distributors.
The cigarettes, which had branded names such as “Vaquero” and “Hony”, were said to be below the market standards of the two countries,hence its authenticity could not be guaranteed.
The Chief Revenue Officer in-charge of investigations at the Tema Command of Customs, Mr Samuel Arthur, told journalists that the cigarettes did not also have the standard Ghanaian labels for cigarettes.
Product Authenticity
Mr Arthur said that for the product to be allowed in Ghana, it must have inscriptions such as “For sale in Ghana Only” , age limit and the bar code of the Standards Authority on it.
“By international marketing practices, they cannot be sold in Ghana since they do not meet the market standards”, Mr Arthur said.
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Mr Arthur further indicated that the importer, after 2012 never showed up to follow on the consignment.
Registration
The importer, Mr Arthur noted, attempted to register the products with the FDA after realising that it did not bear French labels to be allowed to transit to Burkina Faso.
“When that attempt also failed, he never showed up again until September 2015, when he wrote to the Commissioner of Customs requesting to be allowed to export the consignment back to Canada”, Mr Arthur said.
“The request however was turned down after it was detected that majority of the products had gone stale as a result of water leakages into the holding containers”, he added.
IMSS
The Operations Manager at IMSS, Mr Christopher Kuupiele, also indicated that by law, an individual or organisation wishing to import cigarette into the country must have the import licence from the FDA.
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