TAGG RESPONSE TO GRA PRESS RELEASE ON CUSTOMS MONITORING TASKFORCES AND ALLEGATIONS

TAGG PRESS Statement, October 2, 2023

 Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen of the press,

We have been cleared as Ghanaian traders, according to the GRA's official statement. We are pleased that the Ghana Revenue Authority has acknowledged the presence of Taskforces inside the system, which we traders find frustrating, however believe they are engaging in unsupervised actions under the pretense of legal responsibilities.

We would like to reference a few lines for confirmation in the GRA statement.

 “Quote”

The Customs Division, in particular, has put in place four (4) monitoring taskforces to curtail smuggling, under-declaration, misdescription, and concealment of goods, thereby ensuring that the right amount of duties and taxes are paid by importers. These monitoring tasks are as follows: 

1. Monitoring Team: Tema

2. Monitoring Team, Eastern Frontier, based at Dabala

3. Monitoring Team: Western Frontier, based in Kumasi 

4. Monitoring Team: Vehicle Taskforce (Nationwide)

The Monitoring Taskforces have significantly impacted revenue mobilization between October 2022 and August 2023.” Unquote”

If the GRA has actually admitted the presence of such monitoring teams within the system, they should also acknowledge that there is extortion and harassment in addition to their legal activities. We expected the GRA to accept and take responsibility for managing their own internal arrangements in light of the traders' complaints during the TAGG's initial press statement.

It seems that the GRA customs division is deceiving the people of Ghana into thinking that import duties are no longer being collected by the government through the customs system and that Taskforce deployment has been successful in generating revenue for the GRA. In this context, business associations' complaints about extortion and harassment were not addressed. We would like to take this issue one at a time and ask the Commissioner General and the Commissioner Customs if indeed all of these containers were able to evade their notice and leave the port, only to be arrested later and lauded by Ghanaians, as they prove in their release statement with examples. 

This is a clear indication that the Commissioner General and Commissioner Customs are failing to carry out their responsibilities, as claimed by the GRA Customs Commissioner. If the government has spent large sums of money developing customs division systems to ensure due diligence before a container is cleared and such containers leave the port before monitoring teams track them outside the port for revenue realization, then mother Ghana is in serious trouble.

Our stance is unequivocal: the Ghanaian government has invested in such cutting-edge systems at Tema and Takoradi Port for due diligence, tax compliance, and revenue mobilization, but their use is ineffective and inefficient. The only option available to the Ghana Revenue Authority to address the issue is to establish taskforces. Ordinary Ghanaians would have questioned why so much money is being invested in customs systems if the Ghana Revenue Authority is ineffective and inefficient. If this is the case, we advocate raising revenue through taskforces rather than customs. It is past time for our leaders to take the situation seriously.

Thieving and extortion traders would never cooperate with GRA Taskforces if they could continue operating with such impunity. Between 2000 and 2008, Ghana served as a trading hub for a number of bordering countries, including Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. As a result of so-called GRA Taskforces using our highways for harassment and extortion, these countries are steadily lowering their flow of business in Ghana.

All we are asking is that, if GRA chooses to rely on these monitoring teams as they claim, they should do so without victimizing innocent importers and traders who would be subjected to extortion, intimidation, and harassment at the end of GRA's legitimate mandate.

The Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG) and other associations have an excellent working relationship with the GRA. We are committed to collaborating with the GRA to educate our members about tax compliance and raise revenue for Mother Ghana's socioeconomic development. These positive steps have been developed over time by our tax resource executives and members of the traders' educational team, as well as extensive studies on strategies to help the business community understand tax-related issues.

Unfortunately, GRA misled the public into believing that traders do not follow tax regulations and engage in smuggling under declaration, misdescription, and concealment. We are quite unhappy with the GRA leadership's attempt to misinform the public against the trading community. At this juncture, we would like to appeal to all Ghanaians to join us in our efforts to alleviate the suffering of Ghanaian traders at the hands of GRA.

May God bless you and protect Ghana.

 Thank you.

 Signed

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