Customs uncovers falsification of documents by shipping companies and clearing agents
Two shipping companies and clearing agents were uncovered by the customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority involved in an alleged falsification of information on trade documents to evade payment of taxes.
However, allegations have been made against the clearing agents and shipping companies due to them working together to falsify data on their manifests and bills of lading including incorrect descriptions of products, in preference to their own authority or order of clearance, and to avoid paying taxes to the government.
A bill of entry showed Gh 10.15 million in tax evasion when an audit was carried out during the first investigation. Also, demand letters have been sent out to recover any missed taxes for the state, along with penalties and potential legal action against the offenders.
Moreover, the names of the shipping companies and agents have not been mentioned due to the ongoing investigations.
According to Seidu Iddrisu, the commissioner of customs discovered that some of the bills of lading submitted for the clearance of the items at the Tema port had inaccurate information and he also confirmed this in an interview that intelligence was used to learn about the actions of the two shipping lines and importers.
In addition, 23 BOEs in total underwent inspection, 22 of which belonged to one shipping line and had entries that were devalued in order to pay less in taxes and charges.
It also showed that some clearing agents processed customs declarations with false information in an effort to pay less in taxes and duties while also providing cloned declarations with accurate descriptions of products, values, and duty rates and collecting the necessary payment from the importer.
The bills of lading from the shipping lines and the invoices declared to customs were discovered by the local shipping line which has been fabricated. During the investigation, their officers had fabricated the true description of the commodities due to the course of the company’s acknowledgment of Alhaji Iddisah.
He claimed that management had made the decision to look into the previous six years of operations in order to see whether other businesses had participated in the illicit activities at the
The commissioner stated that investigations were ongoing to determine the extent of importers’ involvement as well.
Alhaji Iddisah stated that his organization has migrated or moved the monitoring operations from the ports to the headquarters in order to guarantee proper supervision so as to establish a repository where cleared goods would be carefully checked and examined if necessary, as well as enable quick clearing using the green channel method.
Story By: Nuamah Amabea Sophia
