The Ghana Revenue Authority’s Customs Division destroyed illegal tobacco products seized from Pulmakom and Tamale in the Upper East and Northern Regions. These products had entered the country without paying taxes, harming national revenue.
The Customs Division, along with the military and other security agencies, gathered in Tamale to carry out the destruction. The seized tobacco, stored in boxes at a warehouse in Pulmakom, was confiscated due to tax evasion.
In an interview with Citi News, Georgina Lamisi Tibanye, Sector Commander of the Customs Division of the GRA, who oversees the Northern and North East Regions, disclosed that on September 5, 2023, intelligence from British-American Tobacco led to the discovery of a warehouse in the Upper East Region. A team was then assembled to deal with the issue.
She listed a few difficulties that arose when moving the confiscated tobacco items to their warehouse so that additional measures might be taken.
The Sector Commander mentioned that the culprits fled when the team arrived, but she believes investigations will lead to their capture. She highlighted the challenge of making arrests because carriers often neglect the products they transport.
What she said:
“We’re dealing with illicit cigarettes which were arrested from Pulmakom in the Upper East Region. We got an intel message on September 5, 2023. There was a warehouse where illicit cigarettes were stored. Three teams drawn from our headquarters-Accra, Tema collection, Ho and Tamale. We had earlier sent two men on a mission who gave us the location.
“This exercise was carried out in collaboration with British-American Tobacco, they gave us the intel. We had to engage the military to assist us because of the curfew. The security situation was not favourable, so we had to manage to get what we could get and lock the rest at the warehouse and transported to Tamale. In all, we had 60. 9 million sticks of illicit cigarettes.
“Tamale collection on their own also arrested 162 boxes of cigarettes. Before the Pulmakom operation, there was a few that we got together with drugs that are prohibited and some pornographic items which are also going to be destroyed.”
Madam Georgina Lamisi Tibanye revealed that GRA suffered a tax loss of GHC 7,951,238.39 from the seized tobacco products. She highlighted the broader issue of national tax evasion, stressing its negative impact on the country’s finances.
