The Minister of Finance, Kwadwo Baah Wiredu has reminded the revenue collection agencies to adopt pragmatic measures aimed at meeting the global trade challenges and identifying leakages to plug them. This was contained in a message delivered at the seventh end of year and awards ceremony of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service, CEPS in Accra. Mr Baah Wiredu commended CEPS for their performance in 2006 against the backdrop of increasing global fuel prices. He said in recognition of CEPS contribution to national development government intends to take a look at the over all structure of the service to identify the incentive schemes for capacity building. Government will also do well to provide management with the necessary institutional support that will enable the agency to perform at its best. Mr. Baah-Wiredu gave the assurance of government to provide the requisite inputs for institutional renewal. In his words, the revenue agencies need to be endowed with the necessary inputs to discharge their duties. The Finance Minister charged CEPS to put in place a nucleus monitoring and evaluation system to measure key objectives and targets on regular basis and come out with corrective measures. Mr Baah-Wiredu urged management to have courage, vigilance and fortitude to decisively act anytime issues that could retard their progress come up. He charged the management to intensify training programmes to correct the deficiencies in the system. The Executive Secretary of the Revenue Agencies Governing Board, Harry Owusu, said though CEPS fell short of the revenue target for contributing to over 60% of total revenue target for 2006, their performance was very creditable. He said this year, the challenge is even greater as CEPS is required to mobilize ¢16.617tn, an increase of over 17% over the 2006 target. He called for the support of all staff to make this a success. The Commissioner of Customs, Emmanuel Doku congratulated the staff for their performance against the backdrop of global challenges. He charged staff to redouble their efforts stressing that he would deepen is consultation with staff and management a well as stakeholders in identifying problems and challenges and together working towards solutions. Mr. Doku urged them to engage their stakeholders to advance their purview with a view that CEPS becomes a world class institution. He called on government for logistical support and motivation to achieve the goals for the year. Eighteen junior and senior staff from Customs collections across the country received awards for their excellent performance in 2006.