Executive Secretary of the Vehicle and Assets Dealers Union (VADUG), Frank Kofigah, has revealed that the process of auctioning vehicles at the port has become cancerous.

According to him, auctioning of vehicles at the port over the years has been one of the main problems for dealers and importers. He indicated that the policy and regulation that the Customs use in this process has “outlived its usefulness because it doesn’t actually meet or add up to today’s operations at the port and in this economic” situations.

Mr Kofigah explained that that there is a regulation that state that when an importer brings in goods, he has up to 90 days to clear them out of the port, failure to do so will have the goods auctioned. With this, he noted that stakeholders have overtime requested for that particular regulation to be reviewed.

“I think those regulations were put to curb the backdoor channels that people use in getting their vehicles out or using other means which are not actually the traditional means in getting the job done. The process itself of auctioning I’ll say has become cancerous because people have taken advantage of the system to take properties and goods that belong to people…”
Frank Kofigah

Addressing loopholes in auction of vehicles

Recounting an incident, Mr Kofigah opined that one of the vehicle dealers at the union suffered “a near-death situation at the port which involved a vehicle” of his. He revealed that the dealer imported about six vehicles but wasn’t able to clear the last one and failure to do that meant when he “went to the port after 56 days the vehicle was nowhere to be found”.

“… They went through the investigative department headed then by Mr Arthur and then they realized that the vehicle has been sold to somebody. We were not able to trace the vehicle, there were no documents to actually trace who the vehicle was sold to… It was a very sad situation knowing we had such loopholes and then some custom officers have taken advantage of it.”
Frank Kofigah

Commenting on the OSP’s orders to the Customs boss to stop all auction sales immediately, Mr Kofigah highlighted that it’s “like a cartel” at the port. He stated that even if there are mediums to which an importer can pay in instalment or receive rebates depending on the sum of money he is paying, the importer cannot access it, as these vehicles are sold at peanuts.

“So, government is losing a lot of revenue at the port. If the person was to pay GHC200, 000 for the vehicle and the person can do that in three months, why won’t there be an arrangement where the person can actually pay in instalment or the person can pay overtime. But before you even pay you should know that the port charges, the rent charges that will accumulate before you pay is still better you even leave the vehicle to government to do whatever they want to do with it.”
Frank Kofigah

The Executive Secretary of VADUG commended government for the introduction of ICUMS and the UNIPASS system which has sought to cut down to a large extent some of these practices. However, he emphasized that the issues present at the auction bid on goods at the port till today is still cancerous.