There is seething tension between personnel of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) and Elite Security (ES), a toll collecting company at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), over the payment of road tolls.

Information reaching the Ghanaian Chronicle indicates that some officials of CEPS, in the performance of their officials duties, are made to pay tolls to the ES at the KIA.

This, according to the information, has been the basis of tension as CEPS officials, do not understand why they should pay tolls in the course of their official duties. E.S, on the other hand, maintains that they make the payment. To this end, a petition has been sent to the CEPS authorities but little has been done about it.

The information also revealed that some of the officials do not have enough money on them as at the time of collection but they are forced to "cough up" the amount due. Another allegation was that some of the officers are at times harassed when they show the slightest reluctance in paying.

When Chronicle contacted the acting Assistant Commissioner of CEPS, J.K Acheampong on Monday, November 6, 2000, he said he was not aware of any harassment meted out to any CEPS official with respect to the problem, but was aware that some officers in their private vehicles anytime they use such areas at KIA where the said tolls are collected, are made to pay tolls.

The understanding according to the Commissioner was that the ES is a private entity and they are charged with the responsibility of collecting the toll, adding, they had not been given the mandate by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to exempt CEPS Officers from such tolls.

Touching on what his office has done to relieve the officers at the KIA of the burden, Mr. Acheampong said, his office has written to the GCAA to exempt such permanent officers who were at the KIA from such tolls. "If you are a CEPS officer and you have no business in going to such points and you go there for your private business and you are asked to pay such toll, you cannot say because you are in the custom uniform you will not pay", Mr. Acheampong advised.

Mr. Acheampong however did not mention the AFGO area as part of the problem, adding, there was a cordial relationship between AFGO and CEPS, for that matter, tolls were not taken from drivers of CEPS vehicles anytime they use such point meant for the payment of such tolls. Chronicle could not talk to Mr. Chris Quaye, the GCAA official responsible for the issue because he had a meeting with some persons.