Kumasi, Jan.29, GNA - The Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) collected a total of 9.311 trillion cedis in national tax revenue for 2004, which represents about 2.2 per cent above the set target of 9.11 trillion cedis.

Mr Charles Mensah, Assistant Commissioner and the Kumasi Sector Commander of CEPS, who announced this, attributed the rise in tax revenue to the resilience and relentless devotion to duty by personnel of the service.

Mr Mensah was addressing the end-of-year awards and dinner night of the Kumasi sector of the service in Kumasi on Friday. The dinner was to enable the service to take stock of last year's performance with the view to re-focusing their vision to design and implement effective strategies and programmes that will ensure efficient and transparent service delivery.

He noted that in order to check the menace of smuggling to a controllable level, management of the service had re-aligned some of the check-points on the Kumasi-Sunyani trunk road, adding that, efforts were also underway to re-locate the Ahenkro barrier on the Kumasi-Techiman road to Namon.

The move, he said, would enable the service to cover the diversionary route that avoids the Ahenkro checkpoint from Offinso to Abrepo junction.

Mr Mensah pointed out that, since the Kumasi Airport had not been re-designated to cater for international flights, the airport had been upgraded to a full-fledged CEPS station with a chief collector as head.

On education, he said the service would intensify public education on all customs procedures with the hope that the public would be alive to their tax obligations while at the same time, CEPS vigorously enforce the rules and regulations to the letter.

In a message delivered on his behalf, Brigadier-General Richardson Baiden, Commissioner of CEPS, called on the personnel of the service to redouble their efforts this year by emphasising on the virtues of discipline and commitment to duty.

Mrs Lawrencia Abaga and Mr Johnson Yankey, were given certificates of honour in the junior and senior divisions respectively for their dedication and commitment to duty.