Don’t intimidate traders – Brigadier General to custom officers

Brigadier General Zibrim Bawah Ayorrogo, the Commissioner of theCustoms Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has admonished customs officersagainst imitating members of the public in their line of duty.Speaking in an interview with the media on the sidelines of a working visit to the Upper EastRegion, Brigadier General Ayorrogo, urged the staff to remain professional in ensuring taxcompliance among traders and avoid activities that promote fear among cross border traders.Instead, he underscored the need for the officers to intensify education to encourage tradersand other relevant stakeholders to willingly honour their tax obligations instead of invadingthem.'Do not harass the traders, be professional. I also want the people to be law abiding, pay thetaxes because it is the taxes that we use in developing our country,' he said.The Commissioner was in the region as part of activities to interact with the staff andexperience first-hand information about the challenges confrontin g their operations and how toaddress them.He was being accompanied by Mr Peter Antobre Ofori, the Deputy Commissioner in charge ofPreventive, Chief Revenue Officer Johnson Menlah Yankey, the Head of Temporary Admission,Principal Revenue Officer, Mr Joshua Quartey, the Commission's Secretariat and Senior RevenueOfficer, as well as Ms Mawushie Adotey, the Communication and Public Affairs.The Commissioner commended the staff of the Upper East Region for exhibiting professionalismand exceeding their collection targets in the past few years, encouraged them to remainsteadfast in helping the country rake in the needed revenue for development.He, however, expressed worry about the porous nature of the country's borders particularlythose in the region and noted that it had over the years affected the amount of revenuecollected.Brigadier General Ayorrogo revealed that plans were advanced to build the capacities of staff onmodern operations to strengthen interagency cooperation, identify hotsp ots, smuggling routesand provide improved border protection.He said some of the collections did not have scanners, which issue were currently beingdiscussed to ensure that scanners were secured for the thorough scanning of all that came in orwent out, in this era of jihadist activities.Source: Ghana News Agency