Licences of six freight forwarder firms revoked

 … Over falsified port of loading documents

The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says it has revoked the licences of some six freight forwarding companies, after it was detected that they falsified port of loading document by changing the country of origin and under-declaring the values.

The companies in question--Nasowah Enterprise, Abacus Digital Media Limited, Wayglow Enterprise, Fantega Company Limited, Too Smatt Enterprise and Dovis Clearing House Limited will be served with notification to that effect.

The actions of the six companies, according to the GRA, have led to huge revenue loss due the state.

Chief Revenue Officer, Communications and Public Affairs at the GRA, Mr. Yankey Johnson Menlah, told B&FT that the Authority will vigorously pursue those importers and retrieve all moneies due the states. 

“I can assure you that in this situation, nothing would be lost because we will go after the importers for them to refund the revenue lost and they will do so with a penalty slapped on them to serve as a deterrent,” he said.

Mr. Menlah said the affected companies would receive their revocation letters after which they would be barred from engaging in the freight forwarding business in the future.

Mr. Menlah said the alleged malpractices were identified through data sourced from the Indian Customs Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data interchange (EC/EDI) Gateway (ICEGATE) platform which is part of the Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) programme. 

The ICEGATE platform provides the opportunity for Ghana Customs to share information with its India counterpart on electronic filing of the bill of entry--import goods declaration, shipping bills--export goods declaration and related messages.

An internal GRA Memo, dated October 23, 2018 and copied to the B&FT said the alleged illegalities of the companies benefited themselves and their clients, who are companies and individual importers.

The Memo showed that Abacus Digital Media Limited had the highest values under-declared. 

The company cleared pharmaceutical products imported from India on three occasions in August, yet declared that the goods were imported from Italy and paid US$48,377.6 to the state, instead of US$227,253.9.

Also on three separate occasions, Fantega Company Limited also cleared safety matches for two different importers and declared that the goods, on one occasion, were from India and the rest were from China.

The GRA memo, however, indicated that the ICEGATE platform showed that the port of load for the goods was India. The firm consequently paid US$26,000 as duties on the matches instead of US$94,013.6.

It added that Nasowah Enterprise allegedly falsified the port of loading from India to China in the clearing of sardine and under-declared the values presented to Ghana Customs for duties. It paid US$25,075 instead of US$89,134.67.

The same situation happened with the rest of the freight forwarding companies — Dovis Clearing House Limited, Too Smatt Enterprise and Wayglow Enterprise.

Mr. Menlah, noted that the irregularity which was detected with the help of the GRA said the implementation of the Cargo Tracking Note CTN is to provide greater scrutiny of major imports for both valuation and security management purposes.

The CTN is a risk assessment engine that allows Customs and other authorities to effectively control, supervise and manage import traffic.

The CTN module is a system in which shippers upload information on their Cargo onto a global platform. This is then made available to Cargo Tracking Notes (GH Ltd.). The information to be provided includes the Export documents, Commercial invoice, Bill of Lading, Certificate of Origin and Freight invoice among others.

By introducing CTN, the Authority seeks to improve its services via aligning its operations along with Trade Facilitation and Security Recommendations by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Customs Organisation (WCO); and in accordance with new standards for international cooperation between member-states of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

According to the GRA, the CTN will provide data to Ghana Customs and other stakeholders in advance to enable Cargo Review Processes in a manner that ensures generation of key prior-shipment information in real-time to effectively Control, Supervise, and Manage import traffic into Ghana.

It will also help with the collation of a reliable trade database to benchmark & protect government revenue in import duties and taxes, as well as plugging identified loopholes and leakages in order to preserve the sanctity and integrity of Customs valuation for goods and freight.

The CTN is targetted at safeguarding and facilitation of trade in order to significantly reduce the turnaround time for Cargo Clearance, which in turn will allow importers to avoid the payment of heavy demurrage fees and generally reduce the cost of doing business.

Again, it will ensure the provision of a one-stop comprehensive and broader view of the global logistics chain to Customs, the Port Authority and other structures of control, which will eliminate duplications and enhance reporting requirements.