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The China Railways Construction Corporation (WUJU), the construction firm working on both the Giffard and Burma Camp roads in Accra (from the 37 Military Hospital to Labadi T-Junction), has been caught in the web of tax fraud, but left off the hook of being prosecuted in court. Information picked up by The Chronicle indicates that the construction firm has been selling chippings at its quarry site on the Nsawam-Apedwa road in the Eastern Region to road contractors and estate developers without paying any taxes to the government of Ghana, its employers. An investigation conducted by The Chronicle established that WUJU was granted an operational license by the Minerals Commission, after winning the contract to reconstruct the Giffard and Burma Camp roads to mine rocks and break them into chippings to execute the projects. The process of mining and crashing of the rocks into chippings were all factored into the contract. But, without any legal backing, WUJU started selling the chippings to the public when it was operating a development quarry. The conduct of the Chinese Company, The Chronicle gathered, has kicked all the nearby private mining companies out of business, because the estate developers prefer to patronise their chippings which are very cheap because it has no tax elements in it. Among the private quarry companies which have been kicked out of business are: Manssco Stone Quarry, Maso Quarry Limited, Jericho Quarry, and Abka Quarry among others. Because these companies have duly been registered with the Ghana Revenue Authority and Minerals Commission, they pay regular taxes to the government through Valued Added Tax receipts they issue, waybills, and Mineral Commission waybills. Apart from this, the quarry firms also pay GH�15,000 annually to the Minerals Commission before their commercial license to mine is renewed. Those who fail to renew their license are denied the right to buy explosives to carry on with the business. Unfortunately, WUJU does not pay any of these taxes, because it is a development quarry meant to execute a specific project for the government. Therefore, all the chippings they have been selling to the public is tax free, thus denying the state the needed revenue that would have accrued to it if these chippings had been sold by the private quarry firms. The Chief Inspector of Mines at the Minerals Commission, Mr. Mike Botchway, confirmed the illegal sale of the chippings by WUJU to the public when The Chronicle contacted him. According to him, his taskforce arrested officials of WUJU for selling the chippings, and when they were questioned, they claimed the government had not paid them for some of the projects they had executed, and to avoid their workers going on strike for non-payment of salaries, they decided to sell the chippings to pay salaries. Botchway further told The Chronicle that despite this explanation, his outfit still went ahead to fine them $20,000 for breaching the law, because they do not have the commercial license to quarry and sell the products. He then directed the WUJU officials, who also claimed they did not know selling the chippings was a crime, to speak to the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA), which will, in turn, write to the Minerals Commission if they still want to sell the chippings. In this way WUJU would be taken through the right procedures to acquire all the permits, and the accompanying money they have to pay to make them a commercial entity.