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Clearing agent, 44 in court for duping state of GH¢16.4m
A 44-year-old clearing agent, Francis Yaw Terrison is facing trial at an Accra High Court for allegedly duping the state of an amount of GH¢16,369,908.10.
The accused, a Freight Forwarder and the Chief Executive Officer of GATAFX Logistics Limited, a clearing agent company, who operated at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, is said to have forged Customs Excise Duty Documents and GCB receipts between 2014 and 2019 to defraud the state of the amount.
Mr Terrison is facing three counts of falsification, alteration and forgery of official documents, fraudulently evading customs duties and money laundering.
The facts of the case read in court indicated that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in recent times had not been meeting its revenue targets and thus, the Intelligence Unit of the GRA decided to conduct thorough audit into transactions of some key freight forwards whose tax returns looked suspicious.
The court heard that the GRA zoomed on the accused person’s company GATFAX Logistics Limited and discovered that, the accused person’s company had from 2014 to 2019 suppressed customs excise duties to the tune of GH¢16, 369,908.10 for products his company cleared for Max International, a pharmaceutical company based in the United States of America.
The prosecution said as part of investigations, the Intelligence Unit of the GRA on January 1, 2020, wrote to Max International Company, the importer and GATFAX Logistics Limited, the clearing agency and obtained the import documents from 2017 to 2019.
The court heard that when the import documents were scrutinised, it was detected that, the accused person’s company between 2014 and 2019 under declared to Customs the required duty amount which was to be paid to the state, and paid a lesser amount.
The prosecution explained that on the contrary, the accused after paying a lesser amount, then scans the paid duty documents that he had generated from Customs and inserted or doctored the right duty figures which were supposed to have been paid to the state to make it reflect as the amount paid and used the forged receipts and documents to bill the importer, Max International and unduly benefitted from the suppressed amount differences.
The court heard that during interrogation and in his caution statement, the accused admitted the offence and narrated how he manipulated the system.
The prosecution told the court that the accused said he used proceeds realised from the deal to buy six plots of land at different locations at Oyarifa and Ayi-Mensa, both suburbs of Accra.
The court further heard that the accused used some of the monies to put up three separate storey-buildings on three of the plots.
BY TIMES REPORTER
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh, has expressed concern over delays in the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund, warning that the situation is stalling development across the country.
On his facebook page, he described as a matter of urgent national importance, the Minority Chief Whip pointed to what he sees as a growing crisis of unpaid contractors, abandoned projects, and halted infrastructure works in many districts.
He noted that several communities are grappling with half completed schools, unfinished health facilities, abandoned markets, deteriorating roads, and stalled sanitation projects.
According to him, many contractors who have executed projects for district assemblies have not been paid, forcing some construction firms to demobilise from sites while workers lose their jobs.
He stressed that the District Assemblies Common Fund is not a discretionary allocation but a constitutional requirement under Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, intended to support development at the local level.
In his view, years of delayed releases and accumulated arrears have weakened district development financing and disrupted projects meant to improve living conditions in communities.
He further argued that some payments made in recent years were largely the settlement of old debts rather than funding for new or ongoing projects, a situation he believes has affected contractor confidence and local economic activity.
He described the issue as more than a budgetary challenge, characterising it as a development emergency and a governance concern.
He therefore urged the appropriate authorities to pay outstanding DACF arrears, settle contractors who have completed their work, and ensure that transfers to districts are automatic and predictable.
He maintained that decentralisation can only succeed when district assemblies receive adequate and timely funding to carry out development projects.
He emphasised that stalled projects directly affect ordinary citizens, since they rely on such infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and economic activities.
He called for renewed attention to grassroots development, insisting that national progress should not be concentrated only in major cities but extended to all communities.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Richard Appiah, the footballer who killed two children and stored part of their bodies in a fridge at Abesim in the Bono Region in 2021 has been handed a lifetime sentence.
This was after a five member panel of judges at the Accra High Court returned a verdict of guilty against the convict.
Appiah, 32, also a draughtsman would spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder.
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BY MALIK SULLEMANA
