Members of the Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) have noted that though they support government’s plan to widen the tax net, they are concerned about the operations of a Taskforce that claims to be part of National Security at the Tema Port.

According to the association, the activities of the Taskforce seem to negatively affect the operations of revenue collection agencies at the Tema Port.

In a press release issued in Accra recently and signed by Alpha A. Shaban, General Secretary of GUTA, the aggrieved members said: “The question that comes to mind now is are we in a crisis of institutional breakdown.

“After all, importers have not performed so badly as far as payment of revenue to the state is concerned.

“The revenue agencies always meet their revenue targets each year and have almost always exceeded their targets even before the year ends for the past couple of years. And this has been made possible due to efforts of the institutions charged with revenue collection for the state.”

Touching on under-invoicing, they said “we therefore can confidently state that there is nothing like under-invoicing in this present dispensation. If anything at all, we can assert that we are being over-taxed by the fact that these Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) almost always double or triple our stated values, whether real or otherwise and this often results in misunderstanding between DICs and importers.”

“We do not have a problem with post-clearance checks. But what we are saying is it should be done in a manner that gives respect and freedom to the importer instead of the constant policing, delaying cargoes, frustrating and at times harassing the importer.

“We are however of the view that major challenges such as lack of adequate and efficient container handling equipment, insufficient scanners and unnecessary delays militate against revenue maximization.”

The association opines that trade would be boosted if the problems are addressed.

It appealed to government to suspend the operations of the taskforce in order to address the problems.