The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) exceeded its target in the first quarter of the year by GH¢72 million following measures it adopted to plug the loopholes in its revenue collection system. Deputy Commissioner of Policy and Programmes of the division, Mr Isaac Apronti, listed the measures to include the installation of CCTV cameras to monitor activities at the ports, as well as the establishment of an ethics committee to deepen the sense of good behaviour among officials of the division. Mr Apronti, who was interacting with journalists after officials of the division had gone on a health walk in Accra on Saturday, said morale among personnel of the division sunk very low after a private investigator had exposed corrupt practices among some officials at the Tema Port but the leadership took measures to overcome the challenges and chart a new path. After the exposé on alleged corrupt practices, some officials of the division were even afraid to wear their uniforms because of the increasing sentiments of the public against them, he said. Last February, President J.E.A. Mills expressed disgust and revulsion at the profligate lifestyles of customs officers who, after a few years of being appointed, constructed huge mansions and bought posh cars, while employees in various public sector institutions wallowed in poverty. The President said the profligate attitude would not be tolerated in any organisation and pledged to support all steps to sanitise the system. He was addressing customs officials against the backdrop of a documentary, “Enemies of the Nation: The Dark Secrets of Tema Harbour”, filed by an investigative journalist, Mr Anas Aremeyaw Anas, when he paid an unannounced working visit to the Tema Port. The Tema Harbour, the biggest revenue collection centre in Ghana, has, over the years, come under a barrage of alleged acts of bribery and corruption, with customs officials said to have colluded with agents and institutions to defraud the state. Mr Apronti, who is also the Chairman of the Ethics Committee of the Customs Division, said gradually the division was purging itself of the elements who were tarnishing its image for the rest to work assiduously for the division to regain its past glory. He challenged the personnel to refrain from practices that tended to dent the image of the division and reduce the nation’s revenue for the division to return to its former days as the showpiece of revenue mobilisation which made the World Bank to recommended Ghana’s revenue agencies as the model for African countries that were struggling to come out of their economic doldrums. Addressing the officers at the end of the health walk, the Commissioner of the division, Major General Carl Modey, said the march was aimed at fostering good and cordial relationship among officers, as well as promoting teamwork for the achievement of organisational goals. He said the route march was also aimed at promoting the physical well-being of officers because a healthy officer was an asset to the nation. He said in spite of the few setbacks, the morale of personnel of the Customs Division was high and that they were determined to regain the needed dignity and respect. A former Commissioner, Brigadier T. E. Nguah, noted that news of corrupt practices by some of the officers that were shown on national television broke his heart but he was convinced that it was a few bad nuts who, for their parochial interest, dragged the name of the division into the mud. Source: Daily Graphic