Leaking Tema Port Is Enriching Individuals …Speech Read By Centre For Freedom And Accuracy

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media and thank you for coming. We have invited you here this morning to discuss a subject of national importance. As some you will recall the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy in collaboration with Tiger Eye Private Investigators in April this year, launched the National Anti-Corruption Campaign.

At the launch we enumerated a number of strategies for the campaign including NAMING, SHAMING AND JAILING. We realize that the last part of this particular strategy depends largely on third parties particularly the Police, the Attorney General's Department and the Judiciary. And so while we do not have control over these institutions, we will endeavor to ensure that sufficient pressure is piled on them to do what they have to do.

Today we have gathered here to give you a glimpse of some of the things we have discovered in the course of our work. Ladies and Gentlemen we can tell you that the State of Ghana is in danger of losing control over its resources and source of revenue to private individuals some of whom are foreigners whilst many are citizens of this country. We have been doing some work at our Ports and Borders and we can categorically say that these Ports and Borders have virtually become Free For All. They are not only porous but they have become the private concessions of many individuals who daily share the revenues gathered there with the State. In fact these private individuals even take the larger share of what should legitimately be going to the state.

From conservative estimates, our Experts tell us that the country is losing over USD150million every month to individuals and private companies in taxes, import levies and excise duties. Smuggling at our borders is on the increase, revenues are dropping and level of discipline amongst our officers at these Ports and Borders is declining.  For about a month now the research wing of the National Anti-Corruption Campaign has been conducting some undercover investigations at the Tema Port and the discoveries of the investigation is what we want to share with you this morning. We have in our possession video footage and hard copies of very damning documentary evidence of the rottenness at the Tema Port which we will not make available today because we first have to share it with the relevant Government institutions for the appropriate action to be taken.

We will however share with you some very hard facts we have discovered in this investigation. First of all we have established the fact that scores of containers of imported goods escape the tax net daily under the very watch of our security agents and custom officials at the Tema Port.

 
We also discovered that two retired service officials (names withheld for now) who operate their own clearing agencies are at the centre of a massive tax evasion syndicate at the Tema Port. Their modus operandi is that the two connive with some serving officers at the Port to ignore the inspection process and give their own descriptions to containers on custom documentation to attract very little or no tax at all. Like I said earlier, we have in our possession video footage and exclusive documents on most of the containers that passed through the Port in 2012 and 2013. These documents show the names of the Consignees, Ports of Departure and Arrival, Final Destinations of the containers and the Description of their contents.

Ladies and gentlemen most of the containers are described as carrying low valued goods such as foodstuff, provisions and super market or house hold items. In the case of high valued frozen foods such as chicken leg quarters, they are mostly described as chicken parts to attract lower duties. Curiously most of the consignees are people who are known to be owners or related to owners of major trading companies in the country trading in stuff other those mentioned in the containers.

In some cases these well known trading companies use pseudo indigenous names to hide their own identities. They also sometimes indicate cities or towns other than Accra as the final destinations of the containers to further hide this fraudulent activity.

(DEMONSTRATE EVIDENCE-SHOW POWER POINT PRESENTATION OF THE DOCUMENTATION)

For example in January 2013 alone, a consignee by name Kojo (second name withheld)received Eighty-Five (85) containers whose contents were described as food provisions with a small town in the Eastern Region as the destination of all these containers.

The following month-February 2013, the same Kojo took delivery of yet another 30 containers also described as containing provisions with their destination as the same small town in the Eastern Region. We have done our research and found out that no Supermarket or even Warehouse in this small Eastern Region town has the ability to absorb One Hundred and Fifteen (115) 20-footer container loads of provisions in two consecutive months. Curiously the Shipper of these consignments is a Thailand based company whose business is something other than the production or distribution of provisions.

Similarly another consignee by name Stephen (second name withheld) regularly takes delivery of containers all described as provisions destined for one of the capitals in the North. From our analysis of customs documentation this consignee receives an average of twenty containers of provisions every month and all of them have this capital town in the north as their destination.

Now Ladies and Gentlemen this is the trick; declare high valued items like Air Conditioners, Fridges, Television Sets or even Perfumed Rice as assorted foodstuff, stationery, or provisions and pay less duty to stay ahead of the competition. This is what is going on at the Tema Port.

 
For example the total value of a 20-footer container of air conditioners could be about USD50, 000 with a 25 per cent duty of about USD12, 500 to be paid to Government.  But if the container is declared as assorted foodstuff with a face value of USD10, 000, 25 per cent duty will amount to only USD2, 500 thus denying the government of about USD10, 000 per container. So then an individual who takes delivery of a hundred containers in two months will deny the Government of USD1million in duties.

As you can see from the presentation made to you here this morning, almost all the Containers that passed through the Tema Port between April and December of 2012 and between January and May of 2013 were described as low valued items (assorted foodstuff, provisions, house hold or super market items and used clothes). Experts will tell you that it is cheaper to do bulk shipment of cargo instead of containerization. So common sense, should tell us that an individual who imports goods in eight-five (85) separate containers in a single clearance must be up to something fishy.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, for the reasons that we have demonstrated to you here, the National Anti-Corruption Campaign wishes to NAME AND SHAME the country's Ports as one of the institutions that bring this nation a lot of shame and disgrace internally amongst ourselves and in the eyes of the international community. When the video footage is later played on our Television Networks you will see more of what we are discussing. Most businesses in this country have very little regard for our operations at the Ports and borders and that must be a matter of concern to all of us.

Some individuals working at these ports in connivance with some unscrupulous private sector operators are doing this country a lot of harm by denying us badly needed revenue for our development. Our poverty is attributable to some of these acts. These people are enemies of the nation. We are using this opportunity to call on Government not to gloss over these things. We expect them to act at once to check the saboteurs. We also want to use the opportunity to remind the Government that the arrangement that allows private companies to take 70 and 40 per cent of all revenue their collect for state institutions as was reported recently is nothing less than plain robbery. It must cease immediately.

We are willing to share the results of our investigations with any state institution that cares to know what is going on at the Tema Ports and our Ports and borders in general. We thank you for coming.

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