Vice President and Presidential Candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has promised to realign the country’s import duty with that of Togo to reduce the smuggling of goods across the border if voted as the president in the December 2024 elections.

According to him, Ghana currently loses millions of cedis in revenue to smuggling activities as a result of the relatively higher import duties at the country’s ports.

He made the promise in Ho while on a tour in the Volta region.

Speaking to members of the Clergy as part of his one-day tour of the Volta region, the Vice President and flagbearer of the NPP for the 2024 elections announced several policy initiatives as a stop-gap to corruption and revenue generation to propel the country’s economic growth if allowed to lead the country.

Specifically, is the issue of the country’s import duty which he promised to have a second look at.

“…A lot of goods are smuggled into Ghana through Lome because Lome Port has lower import duties than the Tema Port. They have lower import duties than the Tema Port, isn’t it? so they would rather take the goods through Lome and smuggle them into Ghana and we don’t get any revenue from that. So the new policy that I am coming up with is simple, Ghana’s import duty for any goods will not be higher than the Lome Port duty. We will cap our import duty at that level, we can be lower, but we will not be higher. Once we are not higher there will be no need for anybody to smuggle through Lome. They will rather come through Ghana and that will help us get more revenue in that regard.”

Dr. Bawumia as part of his vision indicated that a government under him will pay serious attention to agriculture to ensure the country produces enough for domestic consumption and export.

As part of his tour, Dr. Bawumia engaged with several other relevant stakeholders including the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Muslim clerics, students and market women in the Ho Central market.

The engagements were to enable him to share his vision as the NPP’s presidential candidate with the various stakeholders and to also seek their support ahead of the December polls.