A council member of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders, Eric Adiamah, has encouraged the Customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to bolster its operational collaborations with freight forwarders in the fight against smuggling at Ghana’s ports.
According to him, the existing regulations governing transit trade are sufficient to control the diversion of transit cargo at the ports with the right teamwork between the two key institutions.
“If the rules provided by the books are followed to the latter, monitored by customs and all the authorities, the rules as they stand now are enough to do the business.
The new things they are bringing up, will not improve anything, they will not stop diversion, it will only worry people who do legitimate business,” he said on GPHA’s Eye on Port.
As a further disincentive to others, he urged that those apprehended for transit diversion offences must be made to face the full rigours of the law.
Mr. Adiamah also called for escorts for goods with high risk of diversion in the transit process.
He explained that section 95, Act 891, 2015, (6) of the Customs Act allowed for escorts for high risked goods under transit when the Commissioner deems it so.
“There were suspicions that some high risk goods were likely to be diverted and because of that, we have to place escorts on them.
So, it is not the entirety of the whole transit trade. High risk goods like rice, tomato paste, cooking oil, vegetable oil, ethanol, alcohol, diapers are being brought in more, hence, the directives from the Commissioner and Commissioner General that we should ensure that we put escort on them,” he indicated.