From today, I will rather believe Salivary mouth of Abronye than Bawumia the Vice President.
Bawumia has confirmed today that anytime he greets, we must look at the Direction of the sun before responding. I greet you Hon. A.B. Fuseini.
I imported some machines from China last month and had to pay import duties of over 17,000 Ghana cedis which I don’t currently have, so when I heard of the reduction of the import duties I was very happy and called my agent and a friend who works with GRA about the “good news” of the 50% reduction but their reply was a direct opposite and shocking.
- According to my friend at GRA custom division, the Vice President lied to the people of Ghana because Government cannot reduce import duties without parliamentary approval.
- He said the import duty has lots of components AU and ECOWAS levy that the government has no control over hence cannot reduce it. Others like the VAT, NHIL, GET FUND are so crucial and the government is even making plans for an increase in the coming days.
- He said the benchmark value the Vice President talked about is irrelevant and is not more used by the customs.
The Benchmark value our vice president talked about is the standard price given to items when the invoice submitted by the importer in doubt.
Before the introduction of the Common External Tariff (CET) and the CTN, importers always give fake invoices in order to pay less duty so government uses the Benchmark value which is the standard price for goods whose invoices submitted are in doubt.
Because the Benchmark value has it’s serious defects, it again led to the introduction of what we called the CARGO TRACKING NOTES (CTN).
CTN is a code given to every item imported to enable GRA to track the exact price of the item from the manufacturer to prevent importers from faking invoices.
Every item imported now has a CTN number which helps the customs officials to determine the actual price of the imported goods. This has made the Benchmark value irrelevant from the day the CTN was introduced.
The customs officer said they were all shocked by the lies our Vice President but according to him, the importers will face the reality when they come to the port from tomorrow.
What continues to worry me is our Vice President lied with confidence and with all the energy he has.
The reality is at the port, not the lecture hall.
#Overtoyoubawumia!
Efo Worlanyo TSEKPO
