Dabala, May 15, GNA - Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) personnel at the Dabala Check-Point on the Aflao-Accra trunk road last Wednesday intercepted a Vectra Saloon car along the Volta Lake near Sogakope with 429 cartons of suspected smuggled goods worth 14.9 million cedis. The goods, which CEPS sources said had a duty value of 5.5 million cedis were going to be unloaded along the banks of the lake to be ferried across to evade the CEPS post at Dabala. The items were mainly different brands of foreign made cigarettes and six pieces of VCD players as well as 30 sachets of ginseng sweets.

Mr Sammy Quarmyne, Chief Collector of CEPS in-charge of the Post told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the driver of the car, suspected as courier of smuggled goods jumped into the bush along the lake and absconded when they saw the CEPS squad. He said the squad was dispatched following a tip-off that the vehicle was travelling towards Accra but branched at Dabala-Junction and had parked around Gbenorkope along the lake when the CEPS team spotted it.

Mr Quarmyne observed that the high demand of foreign cigarettes in Ghana coupled with high tariffs to protect the local cigarette industry had led to an increasing smuggling of the item. He said CEPS operations to check smuggled goods across the lake was being hampered by the lack of a well-equipped Boat Squad since the only outboard motor was stolen two years ago.

The CEPS at Dabala last Thursday also impounded two saloon cars with fake ECOWAS Diplomatic Mission number plates. Mr Quarmyne said the vehicles, a BMW and an Opel Cadet, following each other arrived at the checkpoint, but while an Officer was checking the veracity of the numbers, the two well-dressed men at the wheels escaped. He said a check at the Aflao border where the vehicles had passed revealed that no vehicles with those numbers, 40-01-26 and 37-01-34, embossed on green background had been recorded to have passed.