The Commissioner of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Col Kwadwo Damoah (retd), has hinted that the system of writing examination for promotion of personnel in the division is to be abolished.
He said personnel due for promotion would be assessed and promoted based on their integrity and performance, and not the current system of writing examination and interviews which had proven to be counter productive.
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Interview with the Daily Graphic after a three-day working visit to the Volta Region, he said he would like to leave a legacy where officials of custom were well motivated to give their best to enhance revenue mobilisation for the government.
He encouraged officials to work hard to meet their targets while management addressed their challenges.
The Commissioner engaged custom officials at the Ho sector, made up of Honuta, Shia, Nyive and Aflao Sector.
Fighting smuggling
Col. Damoah said the division was stepping up its fight against smuggling at the eastern frontiers, which was still a fundamental problem denying the country of revenue for development.
He said patrols and surveillance were being improved at the various borders to curb the menace. He mentioned factors militating against the realisation of revenue targets to include smuggling, under declaration of values of goods by traders, lack of logistics and promotion of staff.
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The country, he noted, was losing revenue to activities of smugglers therefore the need to eliminate loopholes that allowed such activities to flourish.
Although the government had reduced the values of goods by 50 per cent, the division still recorded negative deviations because people were evading taxes and under declaring values of goods.
Logistics
He admitted that issues of logistics, especially lack of vehicles and motor bikes, were hampering the effectiveness of work of custom officials. Most of the vehicles being used, he said, were old and must be replaced.
As a matter of urgency, Col. Damoah said there were plans to provide additional vehicles and motor bikes for each patrol unit before the close of the year to protect revenue by preventing smuggling and also check the possible infiltration of arms and ammunition.
He acknowledged the need to beef up the staff strength in certain areas DANIDA, he said, had already supported the Division with 12 pickups of which Ho and Aflao sectors would get two each for their operations.
He said due to measures put in place over the past few weeks, especially with the sensitisation of traders to stop engaging in illegal trading, Customs, especially the Ho sector, had started recording positive deviations by giving assurance of exceeding the target by the close of the year.
He commended the Ho sector which still operated manually for developing an app that would enable them to monitor contents of vehicles with goods electronically to know how much tax was expected to be paid to increase more revenue collection in the sector.
The commissioner observed that there had been issues of how officials were promoted in the division, which he said needed to be changed.
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