By Moses Dzawu - Aug 9, 2010
The amount of cocoa smuggled from Ghana may fall to around 50,000 metric tons during the next harvest, half the rate of the 2009-2010 season, after border patrols were increased, the national farmers’ group said.
The Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers’ Association joined with the industry regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board, to send guards to border areas and report smuggling in the world’s second-biggest grower of the chocolate ingredient, said Nana Adjei Damoah, deputy president of the association.
Declining cocoa purchases from farmers, including in the Western region that borders Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, “can be attributed to the activity of smuggling,” Damoah said in an interview Aug. 6 at Essam, near the Ivorian border, 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of the capital, Accra.
The state-run cocoa board estimated as many as 80,000 tons of beans had been smuggled from the West African nation during the current harvest, Chief Executive Officer Tony Fofie said June 14.
Damoah said the total may be “more than” 100,000 tons.
Cocoa farmers in Ghana, where fixed prices are paid for beans, seek higher earnings in markets without controls, especially Ivory Coast.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
High Taxes on Food and Beverages May Encourage Smuggling
Government's 20 percent tax on food and beverages is suicidal because it could encourage smuggling, Mr Nabil Moukarzel, Chairman of Food and Beverage Association of Ghana on Wednesday observed.
He said the situation was particularly disturbing when neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire had only imposed 13 per cent tax on food and beverages as compared Ghana's rate.
"The government of Ghana has imposed 20 percent duty tax, 15 percent value added tax and two percent ECOWAS and other taxes amounting to 37 percent thereby stretching importers to their elastic limits in the country."
Mr Moukarzel, who was explaining to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) the cause of sharp rise in prices of foodstuff such as rice, canned foods and oil, noted that if the taxes were to deter people from importing those commodities then it was misplaced, since Ghana was not yet ready to be self-sufficient in those products.
"There is the need to encourage domestic production, but there is also the need to ensure that the domestic industries are flourishing enough to feed its people before imposing such heavy taxes."
Mr Moukarzel said the current 20 percent would also reduce government revenue as importers were likely to cut down import of those products into the country.
"Already there had been a sharp decrease in the importation of those products in our two major ports in Tema and Takoradi and if the trend continues for the next few months, conditions could be worse."
The Chairman appealed to government to grant a concession to legal business in the country since such businesses had the potential of generating regular income for the country.
"For now there is no way the country can avoid the importation of food and beverages, since we have not got the capacity of producing enough to feed ourselves and export the rest," he said.
Source: GNA
http://news.myjoyonline.com/business/201002/42257.asp
Published: 2/18/2010
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