Govt bans 9 land transit goods
The government has banned the transit of nine products through land as part of new measures to tighten border control, close revenue leakages and protect government revenue.
The products include cooking oil, rice, sugar, frozen products and textiles.
The rest are flour, canned tomatoes, pasta/spaghetti and pharmaceutical products.
The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, announced the ban in Accra yesterday during a meeting with the Commissioner of Customs, Aaron Akanor, and the management of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
The Finance Minister also directed the recentralisation of the Customs Technical Services Bureau (CTSB).
Subsequently, Dr Forson has also directed all relevant departments and units within the Customs Division of GRA to ensure strict compliance with the directives, which are to “strengthen border controls, close revenue leakages and safeguard government revenue.”
“Today, I met with the Commissioner of Customs, Mr Aaron Akanor, and the management of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority to address recent developments at our borders and to take decisive steps to protect Ghana’s revenue.
“Following this meeting, I have directed the Ghana Revenue Authority to immediately implement the following measures. First, I have directed a ban on the land transit of selected products,” Dr Forson said in reference to the nine products banned from being transported as transit goods on land.
Seaports
Dr Forson stressed that the affected goods must now be routed exclusively through the country’s seaports, stating that it would “no longer be permitted to enter or transit through Ghana via land borders.”
The directive follows a similar one two weeks ago banning the land transportation of vegetable oil in transit.
That ban came after a joint enforcement operation by GRA’s Customs Division officials and National Security led to the interception of 12 articulated trucks carrying large quantities of food items deemed a major revenue leakage to the state.
The intercepted trucks were transporting 44,055 packages of assorted goods, including edible cooking oil, spaghetti and tomato paste.
Customs’ assessment of the cargoes pegged the tax revenue loss to the state at GH¢85.31 million, up from the GH¢2.6 million loss initially estimated.
Preliminary findings indicated that the 12 intercepted trucks were part of 18 vehicles that had been electronically gated out of the Customs system at one of the land entry points at Akanu in the Ketu North District.
Customs Technical Services Bureau
The CTSB by its function and set up is supposed to be centralised to provide its services to all customs stations, but that has not been the case in the recent past.
The recentralisation, therefore, is to establish a one-stop shop for valuation and strengthening intelligence sharing, including insights generated through the Publican AI system.
The CTSB is a unit within customs mandated to provide the fundamental elements of classification, valuation and determination of origin of goods in assessing duty payable on goods in international trade – imports, exports, transit, etc.
It is a specialised unit of the division that serves all customs stations within the country with the appropriate values for goods, and also determines the classification applicable according to the tariff (ECOWAS Common External Tariff and other Schedules, Ghana).
The function of valuation, classification and determination of origin is centralised to ensure uniformity in the assessment of duty consistent with the theory of taxation which seeks to avoid discrimination (conforms to basic tenets of taxation namely; equity, certainty, fairness and economy).
It also has a risk unit which profiles applications based on various parameters which include Importers, Declarants, Mode of Transport, Goods Description, among others, and determines the process of clearance to be applied.
