The Ho Sector Commander of Customs Division of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Asst. Commissioner Felicia Azuma has expressed worry about police officers usurping their powers.
She said these police personnel regularly intercept un-customed vehicles without reporting to CEPS officials who have the mandate to deal with such illegal activities.
The Sector Commander noted that since her assumption of office as the head, there have been several reports of police officers arresting and charging culprits for lack of relevant documents without referring them to the legitimate office, which is the Customs Division of GRA in Ho.
The police, according to the Asst. Commissioner, have not only failed to hand culprits to
them but undermine the authority of CEPS officials.
Asst. Commissioner Azuma was speaking in an interview with 3news when the police arrested a suspected unregistered Opel Astra caravan at the main Ho to Aflao stretch, yet failed to hand the car over to CEPS.
The Sector Commander stated that the police and CEPS as well as other security agencies all work for the state and that there is the need for the police to be referring people suspected to have unregistered vehicles to CEPS.
According to Asst. Commissioner Azuma, anytime that CEPS officers are on their routine operations, they arrest cocoa smugglers, narcotic drug dealers and other persons indulging in criminal activities and hand them over to the police.
She therefore expects the police to reciprocate the gesture, but they don’t.
She said the police most of the time take advantage of existing ECOWAS protocols that allow vehicles from sister countries to operate in Ghana within the period of ninety days and any vehicle spotted by the police to have overstayed its mandate is arrested and charged, which is wrong.
This, according to her, is wrong because the police have no mandate to deal with such offenses as they have no appropriate equipment to detect whether vehicles have overstayed.
The Commander appealed to the police to respect the role of various security agencies to avoid going beyond their boundaries and cooperate with sister security agencies to maintain law and order.
The owner of supposedly unregistered Opel Astra caravan car, Edem Nyarko explained that he was travelling from Kpetoe to Ho and the vehicle had a flat tire, hence he parked and called for help.
Nyarko said unfortunately, the police arrested the driver on his way to Ho and charged him for driving un-customed vehicle without thoroughly checking and locked him in police cells before realizing the said vehicle was registered with relevant documents from CEPS.
The owner of the vehicle stressed that though the documents were made available to the police, they demanded GHC5,000.00 from him alleging that those papers were fake.
It is for this reason that he reported to the Customs Division of GRA, Ho sector for necessary action to be taken.
Meanwhile all efforts to reach the police for their side of the story did not yield the needed results
Story by Robert Abilba
