Mr  Divine Richard Bosson, Municipal Chief Executive of Ho, says the Assembly would pursue measures to regulate the activities of foreign traders in the Volta Regional capital.  

Foreigners, including from Mali, Nigeria, and Niger, and whose numbers are on the increase as inland borders continue to hinder passage to Accra, have found the Ho Municipality a haven, and are striving to establish economic ventures.  

The entire street of the Ho Central Market has been taken over by mostly Nigerians dealing in mobile phones, while their counterparts from Mali and Niger had become free itinerant roamers of the Municipality hawking shoes and bags, in what some indigenes fear is a looming security threat.  

Indians and Lebanese are also becoming visible in the Municipality of late, credit-selling home appliances and other products to salary workers – an act that sidesteps international laws of commerce.  

The MCE, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the car park of the Central market had been taken over by the immigrant traders, while locals lacked space for their produce.  

He revealed that local traders had threatened arms against the situation, and that a chapter of the Ghana Union of Traders Associations had been swiftly constituted in an attempt to protect Ghanaian businesses.  

Mr. Bosson said Executives had been engaging the Assembly, and that an operation was being planned to “clear the car park,” and had alternative arrangements to move such trades to the new market buildings.  

“Their presence is affecting local trade, and there are security concerns too, so the local GUTA executives are calling on me daily to do something,” he stated.  

The MCE went on to note the issue of space at the market, where traders were fast developing lockable container stores under open sheds.  

He said such structures were unauthorised and obstruct pathways in the busy market, raising the risks of fire, and hindering emergency access.  

The MCE said the Assembly would remove such containers to make the open sheds available for the intended use by local food sellers and producers.  

Tullow PLC has commended the Government for the outstanding leadership demonstrated, which has facilitated the  pouring of its first oil from the Jubilee South East Area of the Greater Jubilee Field. 

  Mr Phuthuma Nhleko, the Board Chairman of Tullow PLC, said the Ministry of Energy offered the needed technical scrutiny, support and approval that paved the way  for the implementation of the Greater Jubilee Plan of Development (PoD).  

 Mr Nhleko said this when he addressed Ghana’s upstream petroleum sector stakeholders at a commemorative lunch at the weekend in Takoradi.  

 The event was to celebrate  the first oil from the area,  expected to produce an additional 30,000 bopd, bringing production in the Greater Jubilee Field to over 100,000 barrels of oil per day.  

 Production, according to Tullow, began on 13th July, 2023.  

  “I want to commend the Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, for his excellent role; approving the Greater Jubilee Plan of Development,” Mr Nhleko said. 

 He gave the assurance  that   Tullow remained committed, together  with by its partners,  to optimal production  in the spirit of sound investor relations with the Government.  

 Dr Prempeh, on his part, said the sustained discussions, which started in 2017, between the Energy Ministry, Ghana National Petroleum Commission and the Jubilee partners, eventually led to the approval of the Greater Jubilee Full Field Development Plan.  

 “One thing was certain in all the engagements back then: that the Jubilee field was going to be an investment that would lead to increased production in a mature field and pave the way for immense value and benefits for the country,” he said.  

 The Minister said 90 per cent of the human resource working on the Jubilee South East project were Ghanaians and assured of  the continuous provision of direction to improve lives and the economy. 

 “Our role as a Ministry is to work with the regulators and other stakeholders from the Government side, to formulate policies and strategies that will give the key sector players confidence and optimism to continue harnessing resources and investment to transform the industry”. 

 The Jubilee South East project was a stepping stone to other successes the  country could chalk, he said. 

 The government was committed to supporting the negotiation of the gas sales agreement to give a further boost to the oil and gas sector, especially the aspect of tapping into domestic natural gas to power electricity. 

 The commemorative lunch was preceded by a visit to FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, offshore, by President  Nana  Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,  the Energy Minister, senior officials of the Jubilee partners and other government officials who received full briefing on the project.  

The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority is investigating two shipping companies and agents who connived to falsify information on trade documents to pay lesser duties and taxes to the government. 

The process involves the misdescription of the goods to obtain priority clearance and avoid the payment of the full taxes due to the state. 

Alhaji Seidu Iddrisu Iddisah, the Commissioner of the Customs Division, who disclosed this in an interview, said the Division, acting on intelligence on the two companies and importers, discovered that they had dotted their bills of lading in clearing goods from the Tema Port.    

He said the goods were targeted and intercepted for physical examination and the results indicated that  

the descriptions of goods on the Bill of Entry (BOE) were different from the physical goods found in the container. 

“The actual description of the consignments were footwear, bags, belts, underwear, galvanized pipes, etc. as against the entered description of Knapsack Sprayer,” he said. 

Alhaji Iddisah said after the revelation, Management tasked Internal Audit as well as Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Department to conduct an audit on the identified agents and importers in accordance with sections 7 and 9 of the Customs Act 2015 (Act 891) and the World Customs Organisation Revised Kyoto Convention. 

The audit found that 23 Bills of Entry (BOEs), with 22 belonging to one shipping line, had their entries dotted and some of the imports declared by the identified companies were misdescribed and misclassified as well as undervalued for purposes of paying lower Customs duties and taxes. 

• More than 300,000 Sudanese migrants have sought asylum in Chad.

He said an audit of just one of the Bills of Entry  

showed a tax evasion of 10.15 million cedis. 

The audit also showed that some Agents processed customs declarations with inaccurate particulars with the aim of paying lower Customs duties and taxes while providing cloned Customs declarations containing actual descriptions of the goods, the actual Customs value, and duty rates and collected the amount payable from the importer. 

“So, it means they’re cheating both the importers and the government. So, we went to the importers he will show you a customs declaration that they gave to him but that was not what he submitted to us,” he said. 

Alhaji Iddisah said during the investigation the two companies admitted that their officers had falsified the actual description of the goods which was submitted from the ship to them, adding that investigations were still ongoing to find out the level of collusion of the importers. 

“We want all those involved and we want to give a warning to everybody that you cannot hide whatever  

happens it will come up and those who are into that practice can own up,” he added. 

It was additionally revealed that the Bills of Lading from the shipping lines and invoices declared to Customs were falsified by the local shipping line. 

Alhaji Iddisah said following the discovery of the discrepancies, management had decided to expand investigations to the past six years to find out other companies engaged in the negative practice. 

He said while management was not ruling out the connivance of customs officers, investigations were yet to actually establish the involvement of officers, adding that the initial intelligence came from the officers. 

Alhaji Iddisah said demand notices had been issued for retrieving the taxes and penalties lost to the state and investigations were ongoing, which might lead to prosecution. 

To further improve monitoring, Alhaji Iddisah said the Division was shifting the monitoring away from  

the ports to the headquarters to ensure effective supervision, adding that while trying to facilitate speedy clearance via the green channel, Customs had now created a holding area to allow the officers to go through the screening properly and to call for re-examination if necessary. 

“In fact, since we reintroduce it a lot of containers which are passed through the green channel have been reexamined at the port and the differences have been critical and we’ve given them penalties,” he added.