The Deputy Commissioner of Research, Monitoring, IT and Budget of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), Mr. Paul A. Nkansah, has expressed great optimism that the Service would meet its revenue target of GH¢1916.55 million when it completes collating revenues collected nationwide. Mr. Nkansah explained that because some of their service centres were not online, collation of revenue sometimes takes time to complete. Mr. I.O. Apronti, Assistant Commissioner, Revenue and Budget unit of CEPS, had earlier told the paper that out of the GH¢ 1916.55 million target, the commission had as at Sunday 21st December 2008, accrued GH¢ 1861.63 million, leaving some GH¢ 54.56 million to be collected. “For this reason, we have extended our working hours. We now work from 7am to 8pm on week days and from 8am to 5pm on Saturdays, whiles our frontier stations also work 12 hours each day to compensate for the lost days” he stated. He hinted that the services had beefed up security along the frontiers because there were indications that people might want to take advantage of the electioneering period to smuggle goods into the country. He was, however, optimistic that with the measures put in place, the Service would reach its target revenue. “We need to make the target, but if we exceed it, then excellent” he added. Last year, the service exceeded its target of GH¢1661.71 million (¢16.6171 trillion) in excess of some 0.4million, when it ended up with a total generated revenue of GH¢1661.75 million (¢16.6175). The Commissioner for CEPS, Emmanuel Nmashie Doku, alluded that such impressive achievement to the strengthening of the collection processes of the Service, which led to the effective operation of the automation system at the port and the various boarder ports such as Elubo, Paga and Kulungu in the Upper East region. He added that vantage points such as the Kotoka International Airport, Tema and James Fort also did well in mobilizing enough revenue from custom goods, the Commissioner added. He also pointed out that regular training of CEPS officials by some foreign partners also helped to achieve the feat. Source: Chronicle