Recruitment, transfers and promotions within the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) have been suspended until further notice. The suspension, according to the Executive Secretary of the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB), Mr. Sallas Mensah, is to facilitate the smooth integration of all the revenue agencies into one authority. He gave the assurance, however, that more personnel would be recruited after the integration exercise and asked the staff not to fear any form of redundancy. Mr. Mensah was addressing CEPS officials at Aflao during an inspection tour of some revenue agencies in the Volta Region on Thursday. He said the exercise was a challenging responsibility which needed the political will to execute, explaining that it was only Ghana and Nigeria that had delayed in integrating their revenue agencies into an authority, adding that study tours would be organized to countries which had the system in place to disabuse peoples minds about the negative perceptions they had of the concept. He expressed satisfaction with the performance of the Aflao Collection Point and urged the personnel to remain committed in order to face the challenges in the changing world. The Commissioner of CEPS, Mr. Emmanuel Doku, said modern-day CEPS was expected to be instrumental in trade facilitation by checking counterfeit and contraband goods, illicit drugs and money laundering. He said governments all over the world relied on CEPS to provide data on international trade and breaches of security, adding that the position of CEPS officials at the frontiers was pivotal in playing this key role. Mr. Doku said the automation project of the service was quite successful and that all major entry points of the nation had been automated, leaving just smaller stations to be tackled in a second phase. He said the service was complying with all the recommendations from review workshops aimed at minimizing revenue leakage, while facilitating trade, and added that the automation project had made CEPS to achieve its target in the last financial year. He indicated that international training courses were in the offing to upgrade the knowledge of officials on new trends in international trade. Mr. Doku said the annual target set for the year had been reviewed from GH¢2, 295.4 million to GH¢2,853 million and urged the staff to improve on their performance to be able to face the bigger staff. Source: Daily Graphic