As you may have realized, I have been silent for quite sometime now. My silence begun when I accepted a position with a prominent family owned circus. Yes, the circus! Did anybody ever dreamed of becoming a financial manager for a circus company when they grow up? I did not but the crazy and insensitive corporate American world compelled an MBA holder to take a position with the traveling circus! I got the chance to meet citizens of various countries: Trinidad and Tobago, China, Gabon, South Africa, U.S.A, and Kenya. I also got the chance to meet Arsenio Hall, Robin Givens, and a lot of Hollywood big shots in LA. The circus traveled so much so that I did not get the chance to write as much as I wanted. I also got the chance to tour the U.S.A for free!
Tema Harbor and the Blood Sucking Agents
Enough of my new job. So it came to pass that Papa Samo needed to go back to the land of gold where the majority does not seem to have access to the riches that the gold is supposed bring. I am not going to bore you with the trip this time. It was not normal but the whole world is not normal either. Also, since I had to go through the headache of clearing goods at the Tema Harbor, I will just combine my May experience with that of December of this year. The general Christmas atmosphere was very solemn. People are complaining that there is no money in the system. Compared to Rawlings? time, money is hard to come by yet if you look at the development that is going on by individuals, and the sort of vehicles that these individuals are driving, it makes you wonder why our country has not moved up a notch. Also, the Christmas spirit caused someone to cause a big hole around one of my bags! In the name of the same Christmas spirit, the person or people spirited away my digital camera, some items of clothing, and valuable pictures that could not be replaced. My graduation pictures, pictures of Papa Samo riding a horse, pictures of Papa Samo and Hollywood stars like Blair Underwood, Arsenio, and Robin Givens (Mike Tyson?s ex) are now in possession of a fellow Ghanaian who is supposed to tote my luggage from the Airplane to the Kotoka luggage carousel. I am waiting on the Day of Judgment where the good lord will assemble all of us, and through his ?good and bad register? read out our sins. I know that when it gets to the thief?s turn, the lord will mention that he/she stole my digital camera, graduation pictures, pictures of Papa Samo riding a horse, and pictures of Hollywood stars like Blair Underwood, Arsenio, and Robin Givens (Mike Tyson?s ex). When that happens, I am going hit the perpetrator(s) of my latest incidence with a baseball bat so hard that the angel Michael will have to detain me in purgatory for half a day before he allows me to heaven to sing praises to the almighty. What hurts me most is the time and energy I spent to learn to ride the damn horse.
Many Papa and Maame Samos have described the Tema harbor in various ways. Some call it the ?Belly of the Beast?, others call in the ?Hell within hell?, yet others call it the ?Place I wish I never set eyes on?. All these are true to some extent. To begin with, the duty charges imposed on cars are too much. I remember I read somewhere about President Kuffour chastising the Rawlings administration for imposing and actually ?daylight robbing? Ghanaian importers. By the grace of God, Kuffour won the elections in 2000, yet the daylight robbery is still going on. The plight of the importers may have evaporated through his cranium. Sometimes, I wish politicians would just go away. The pain and suffering one has to go through to clear a car or cars from the port is as follows: As soon as you arrive Ghana with your bill of laden (BOL), you need to find an agent to represent you. There are thousands of these agents around the Tema Harbor. To me, the creation of agencies to represent importers is a good economic stance for Ghana, yet these agents have mastered the art of trickery, fraud, and thievery to such monstrous proportions that anytime you have to deal with one of these unscrupulous entities, please start crying. In February of 2005, I had the misfortune of shipping a car home. My agent in Atlanta screw up from the beginning, but when it got to Ghana, the trickster who calls himself an agent sucked me dry. I learned from that, so in May 0f 2005, I begun to do a lot of research about the hellish world of clearing your goods from the port. I saved a little money. I learned more tricks, so when I had to ship more cars and items to clear in December of 2005, I decided that nepotism, of which those who are benefiting from call networking, will go a long way to help. I was able to dig up a very good long lost friend who happens to be a customs agent. This guy is a savior. I was able to clear my container within a week around the busy pre-Christmas season. The only ?mistake? I committed this time was that before I dug out my friend, I had engaged the services of one of those devils, sorry agents. My mistake was that I should have fired him after I got hold of my friend, yet the diplomacy, honesty, and the principled part of me kept him on.
In February, it cost me almost 30 million Cedis to clear a Geo Prizm. Yes that much! Of course in order for the agent to suck me dry, he mentioned some things like rent, demurrage, and penalties because my Atlanta agent who had my BOL did not turn it in on time, and the container sat at the Tema port for a long time, so I get suckered real good. That experience would have left a bad taste in anybody?s mouth to discourage further shipment. Not me. In May 2005, I shipped a Toyota Camry and a Geo Prizm. This time, I personally went to Ghana with the BOL, hired a new agent, and decided to clear the goods. Within three days of working with the devil?s advocate who goes by name of an agent, I realized that he was killing me softly. I realized it when I pitched one agent against him. The ?new? agent, wanting my business exposed the other one. I switched agents, and saved about 7 million Cedis. The ?new? agent got my business and some of my blood and sweat. So when I came back in December, I hired him before I ?discovered? my friend. To cut a long story short, if you know a customs officer, you can move your container faster, pay less in agency services, and even save on the duty on your cars! What I have learned this year is that the Customs Excise and Preventive Services (CEPS) is a money cow for the government. All generated revenue goes straight into government?s coffers. If the CEPS want money, they have to fill out a requisition form to get money from the government. As a result, the government does not mess with the CEPS so the CEPS also can decide to screw you up if they so wish. Remember the Geo and the Camry I shipped in May? The Camry cost me around 38 million Cedis to clear. This means the duty and all related expenses. The Geo cost me about 18 million Cedis to clear. This time around, the Camry cost about 32 million while Geo cost me about 16 million. I also had a Nissan Pathfinder and a Hyundai Accent that cost me about 55 million and 16 million respectively. Folks, the CEPS consider a lot of factors when computing the duty on a car. The first is the Cedi?s exchange rate of the value of the car or item?s country of origin. In my case, it was the dollar. So for each car, the CEPS will quote you the dollar amount as if it was new. For instance, the Geo was quoted as 16,000 dollars. Since it is a 2000 model, the CEPS depreciated it by 50%. So the duty was computed on 8,000 dollars. Based on this, that is where you pay your duty, VAT, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Interest, Income Tax, and other miscellaneous and ?huhudious? amounts. In accounting, at least in the U.S, a car?s value is almost always zero after five years because five years is the usable life of a car, but the guru?s in Ghana say to hell with the makers of the car. They set their own depreciation schedule on things that they have no idea about how it was created. Now within the duty computations, the CEPS have thresholds that are at the discretion of the officer in charge. He can apply the highest, middle, or the lowest amount if it pleases him/her. Your prayer is that he applies the lowest amount, yet it never seems to be the case because if you have a clearing agent, chances are he will hit you with a higher value for your car to begin with. An example is if your car is valued at 16,000 dollars, your thieving clearing agent will quote you about 20,000 dollars, so your computation with him has been inflated right from the beginning. Then he will come back and tell you that he has cut it down to say, 18,000 dollars, but he needed to ?do something? with the customs officer so he used your 1 million Cedis cause the customs officer to reduce the duty for you. You are pleased with the agent, and even tell friends, loved ones and acquaintances how good your agent is, when in reality, he has screwed you over six times. There are other charges your clearing agent will suck you dry that you will never see coming. One of such is something called IDF. I have forgotten the full meaning but you need it to clear your goods. The customs charges 50,000 Cedis to buy the form, and the typist charges 5,000 Cedis, yet my honorable thieving, good for stealing agent estimated 300,000 Cedis! Yes. That is right. You see the profit margin? Who would not want to be a clearing agent? These guys are rich too. They will twist your arms around, get all or most of your money, and eventually lend you some more money. I witnessed that with a guy from Philadelphia who was singing praises to the almighty agent because according to him, he had to borrow about 10 million Cedis from the agent in order for him to get his Toyota 4 Runner from the port. The agent charged the poor guy 64 million Cedis as duty and other expenses to clear the car! The 4 Runner in question and Pathfinder I cleared all have the same engine capacity, so why was my clearing charges and duty in the 50s and his in the 60s?
The God forsaken agent has been able to NOT allow one plus one to be two.
24th Night in Ghana Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a Papa or Maame Samo has a friend in higher places in Ghana, he or she cannot attend a Kojo Antwi show at the International Conference Center in Accra. Papa Samo had a call from an old school mate of the School of Performing Arts, and what transpired was that she has secured ticket for two to attend the much talk about Kojo Antwi 24th night show. Earlier, the rumor mill had it that those tickets were sold out, so when my old school mate mentioned that she had tickets, I was pleasantly surprised. But why would you doubt a whole general manager of a nationally transmitted T.V station? So I went and the show was very good. Kwasi Kyei Darkwa (KKD) was his usual self, and looked very good with his first costume. The second, however, made him look like the president of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana. The Ghanaian women love Kojo Antwi, and a lot of them stood and danced to every single song that Mr. Antwi sung in spite of the fact that they paid a whopping 400,000 Cedis an equivalent of about 44 dollars. For once that night, the police did not bother Papa Samo at all. For one thing, once they see that your car has a trial or dealer license, they smell cash. So they pick those number plates apart and apply all the driving and vehicle laws in Ghana on you. For instance, a car with a trial number is not supposed to carry any more passengers beside the driver. In Ghana, your family or friends won?t allow that to happen, so you are always in violation, but if the police officer sees you wearing a suit, they assume that you are a big shot from some ministry or department, so they might not bother you.
More on that later. Until then, have a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
