An official of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) has advised importers of goods to enquire about duties and taxes before shipping them. They should also educate themselves on the appropriate steps to take to acquire permits on their goods. Mr Joseph Eric Owusu, Principal Collector of CEPS at the Kotoka International Airport said this in Accra on Thursday when they destroyed 12 tons of imported goods which included expired drugs, brochures, packaging material and labels. The items which had been in storage for well over a had been abandoned by their owners and had expired. Mr Owusu said usually importers of such items were ignorant of the duties they had to pay, adding that others were also not aware of the kind of permits they needed to clear their goods. He said some importers, on realising that what was required to clear their goods was beyond their means, simply abandoned them. Mr Owusu said such exercises were often carried out to destroy goods that had expired, adding that it was important for importers of goods to educate themselves adequately on rules and regulations that governed the importation of such items. He said by doing that they would save themselves the trauma of abandoning their goods and seeing them destroyed. Source: GNA