Four vehicles suspected to have been stolen from Canada have been intercepted by officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) at the Golden Jubilee Terminal at the Tema Port. The vehicles are two Toyota FJ Cruisers, a Nissan Murano and the head of an articulated truck. Wrong vehicle particulars on the bill of lading from Canada were provided but new ones suspected to have been issued by a shipping line in Tema providing the correct vehicle particulars were presented for clearing on arrival. According to CEPS officials, the fraudulent deal was carried out to facilitate the illegal amendment of the manifest in order to circumvent the eventual seizure of the incorrectly manifested vehicles. Although they could not provide figures immediately, the CEPS officials said there was an increase in the importation of stolen vehicles into the country. It was established that car stealing syndicates were now changing the chassis numbers of the vehicles from the point of departure to the proper chassis numbers at the arrival point. That was a departure from the old trick of not manifesting the stolen vehicles at all, they said. In another incident, a Bedford truck, with registration number GR 5008 D and loaded with 50 bales of textiles and covered with firewood, has been intercepted. These came to light when the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu visited the CEPS Headquarters to interact with the officials yesterday. Senior officials of CEPS, including Messrs Africanus Owusu-Ansah, P.K. Abebrese and Paul Nkansah, all deputy commissioners, and Ms Annie Anipa, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Public Relations, took turns to brief the minister on what CEPS had been doing to support the government in revenue mobilisation. Mr Baah-Wiredu said the government was losing revenue from its incentive package to Ghanaians to mitigate the rising cost of living as a result of fuel and food price hikes. He said it was important that the revenue mobilisation agencies, particularly CEPS, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Value Added Tax Service, endeavoured to be more efficient in their work. He commended officials of CEPS whose vigilance, professionalism and hard work exposed such dubious deals. Mr Baah-Wiredu said such commitment to work would send a signal to the international community that Ghana was open for genuine business and would not allow fraudsters to dent its image. He appealed to CEPS to publish the list of auctioneers in good standing. He also urged the service to submit a list of clearing agents in good standing to the various Ghanaian missions abroad to help those outside the country to deal only with accredited agents. Mr Baah-Wiredu further advised that the range of duty to be paid on vehicles, depending on type, year of manufacture and capacity, should be published in the newspapers. That, he explained, would help importers know what to pay. Mr Owusu-Ansah said CEPS would investigate the stolen vehicles matter to establish the liability of the clearing agent involved in the importation of the vehicles and deal with the agency, as well as the importer, if they were found to be culpable. He said in the past, the action taken depended on the outcome of the investigations, including the payment of the exact duty and a penalty, the confiscation of the vehicle to be later auctioned or allocated to an agency. He said often such vehicles were sent back to the countries of origin if it was established that the vehicles were stolen. Mr Abebrese said CEPS was collaborating with its international counterparts to expose criminals in the system. Credit: Daily Graphic