Collaborate to check fictitious import documents
The Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) has called for more collaboration between the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) to ensure that Final Classification and Valuation Reports (FCVRs) are issued upon verifiable documents.
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“There is the need for the DICs to make a strong case about the additional valuation by Customs after the issuance of FCVRs, certifying what taxes and duties are payable, since that informs our projection to the importers of payments due the state with which they plan”.
The GIFF made these assertions during an Education/Sensitisation forum organised by Gateway Services Limited (GSL), a destination inspection company, for the executive of the institute.
The forum, which was in partial fulfilment of the contractual obligations of the company to the country, provided a platform for participants to discuss challenges that Freight Forwarders faced in their dealings with major stakeholders in the clearance of goods from the ports.
It was also an opportunity for the GIFF executive members to express their concerns and collectively proffer solutions that they believed could eradicate bottlenecks that caused delays in the clearance process to enhance trade facilitation in the country.
It was preceded by a tour of the company’s offices in Accra and some of its installations such as its scanner at the Tema Port to give freight forwarders an insight into the operations of the destination inspection company.
The GIFF said in order to eliminate fictitious invoices from the clearing process, the DICs should come to the point where they would be able to accept only the list of items in the Import Declaration Form (IDF) without values and do the valuation based on their experience or information in their database.
“This is because quite a number of goods that come in are collected at disposal points or from car boot sales and are not covered by authentic receipts or invoices,” thereby leading agents to conjure invoices to meet the DICs’ requirements.
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They also called on GSL to introduce a short message service (SMS) alert to agents and importers in confirmation of receipt of their documents.
That, they said, would help facilitate the document submission process and ensure that they used alternative means of submission of documents in the event of technical failures that sometimes occurred, causing delays.
The Information Technology (IT) Manager of GSL, Mr Antoine Anney, promptly honoured the request and implemented the SMS system, which had since been acknowledged by some members of GIFF.
The First Vice President of GIFF, Mr Kwabena Ofosu-Appiah, commended GSL for the opportunity and said, “These interactions must not only be seen as a contractual obligation, but as a necessary tool for building solid systems”.
He said the transparency exhibited at the forum had given credence to ‘teamwork and developing together’.
Mr Ofosu-Appiah called for more of such interactions in the future to make the Destination Inspection Scheme more effective.