Bolgatanga, Nov 30, GNA - Senior officers of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on Friday said the service would exceed its annual revenue target of 16.617 trillion cedis this year. Mr. Junior Appiah-Warden, Chairman of the Senior Staff Association, CEPS (SSACEPS) who spoke on behalf of the Officers at their 17th Annual Delegates Conference in Bolgatanga, said if they put in their best and worked hard, they would make it.

"For the past two years running, CEPS has always marginally trailed its annual revenue set targets but ironically, the targets seems to be set every year out of the reach of CEPS, this year we shall break this jinx and exceed our set target", he said. He explained that Tema, a major revenue collection point, recorded very good results in all the past months except April and October and that coupled with the fact that December yields most of the revenue they collected in a year, there was every indication that they would exceed the target this year.

Mr. Appiah-Warden appealed to the government to resource CEPS adequately so as to enable it build up the capacity to lead other revenue collecting agencies to generate more funds on sustainable basis.

Mr. Appiah-Warden suggested to the management of CEPS to design anti-corruption educational strategies such as welfare packages, good remuneration and social systems that would ensure that the customs officer was well catered for.

"By so doing we shall be building the robust and anti-corruptible officer that Ghana needs, and beyond active service CEPS Officials should not become paupers", he said.

Mr. Appiah-Warden expressed regret about the recent bribery case involving CEPS officers and said "We of SSACEPS condemn all acts of malfeasance within the service", and urged the officers to develop corruption resistant techniques in performing their functions. He called for a humane way of handling certain corrupt cases and that ensnarement, arrest, media publication and public tongue lashing dampened the morale of all officers and drastically affected revenue collection for the month of October.

Mr. Appiah-Warden appealed to manufacturing companies and importers especially those in the textile industry and the tobacco manufacturing sectors to support CEPS with logistics to enable them check smuggling.