?5.2 billion Tax Evasion - CEPS bosses in cover up

The Guide says it can confirm that some top officials of the Customs, Exercise and Preventive Service (CEPS) are victimising one Stanley Boy-Quaye, a Principal Collector for his role in uncovering a ?5.283 billion tax evasion by a Lebanese businessman.

It says investigations revealed that a Lebanese businessman, Ali, who on arrival in Ghana from Sierra Leone in April 2000, established the company, Taj Investment Limited, which imports frozen poultry, rice and sugar.

It was noticed by Ghanaian importers of frozen poultry that Taj was undercutting prices of the products, thus throwing them out of business and a complaint by the local association to CEPS led to investigations by the Trouble Shooting Unit (TSU) at the insistence of CEPS ex-head, Nii Okai Adjei.

The paper says the investigation team, led by Boye-Quaye, while doing its job faced a lot of problems with a top official of CEPS, E.N. Noi, to whom Boye-Quaye was to report directly. He was therefore redirected by the ex-Commissioner to one H.K. Nyaxo, a deputy Commissioner. According to the paper, by a twist of events when Nii Okine Adjei was asked to proceed on leave recently, those who felt that the investigations would jeopardise their selfish interests transferred Boye-Quaye from his post at the Head Office to forestall the exposure of the tax evasion.

Sources indicate that by the time the full facts of the investigations become clear, Ali's company might have swindled the nation over ?10 billion.