Movement For Truth And Accountability Addresses Issues Of Continuous Fight Against Corruption In Ghana
The Movement for Truth and Accountability has called on GRA, FIC and EOCO to make public the details of their investigations on fighting corruption in the country.
According to a statement copied to Peacefmonline.com, it is encumbered with GRA to make sure that companies do not reap off State monies needed for development.
Joseph Bediako, convener for the Movement for Truth and Accountability, indicated that the group has been investigating some companies they suspect are involved in money laundering, under-invoicing and tax evasion by the Bank of Ghana monitoring department, Ministry of Finance and other anti-corruption agencies.
“When we uncovered an alleged involvement of about 1,200 companies (both local and foreign) in money laundering, under-invoicing and tax evasion.
Our priority is to see Ghana recoup every penny deprived the state and we will see to it that it happens,” portion of the statement read.
Read full statement below:
PRESS CONFERENCE FROM MOVEMENT FOR TRUTH AND ACCOUNTABILITY ON THE CONTINUOUS FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THIS COUNTRY
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, Members of the Movement for Truth and Accountability, its partners, welcome you all and appreciate your prompt response to this invitation.
For those of you who may not know me. my name is Joseph Bediako, convener for this Movement for Truth and Accountability and i am here with my other executive members including ....…… and other members.
This press conference is a follow up to a press conferece we held on April 8, this year when we uncovered an alleged involvement of about 1,200 companies (both local and foreign) in money laundering, under-invoicing and tax evasion.
Today’s Press Conference has been necessitated by a press release issued by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in response to our earlier press conference that the subject matter was being investigated.
We want the GRA ,FIC, AND EOCO to make public , the details of their investigations if they are indeed keen on fighting corruption and making sure that companies do not reap off the state monies needed for development.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
To refresh our minds, Movement for Truth and Accountability has been investigating some companies we suspect are involved in money laundering, under-invoicing and tax evasion by the Bank of Ghana monitoring department, Ministry of Finance and other anti-corruption agencies.
what we may not be aware is that, the underlisted companies upon getting their request for Import Declaration Form approved to bring in goods to the amount requested ended up importing much less than they requested.
This means that huge amount of money transferred to other jurisdictions solely for import purposes cannot be traced because the companies allegedly under-invoiced, are involved in money laundering or refused paying the required taxes which are considered criminal under Ghana Laws.
The Anti-Money Laundering Act, Act 798 as amended by Amendment Act, 2014 (Act 874) states that “a person commits an offence of money laundering if the person knows and/or ought to have known that property is and/or forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity and the person; converts, conceals, disguises or transfers the property; conceals or disguises the unlawful origin, disposition, movement or ownership of rights with respect to the property; or acquires, uses or takes possession of the property”
ACTION TAKEN
As part of our investigations, we wrote several letters to the GRA, Financial Intelligence Centre, and other state agencies involved in the matter, a year ago, calling for a thorough investigations to be conducted.
The group was expecting these investigating agencies to have completed their investigations by now and the monies retrieved back to the state for developmental purposes.
it is worth to note that the amount involved is over 1.8 billion dollars, an amount which could have supported various developmental projects that could benefit the ordinary Ghanaian.
The movement received a respose to our request written to these agencies , that the subject matter was beng investigated.
For instance on 4th December 2020 ,we petitioned the Financial Intelligence Centre to investigate the list of companies we presented to them for allegedly being involved in money laundering.
On 14th December 2020, we received a response signed by Kweku Dua, the Chief Executive Officer , that the subject matter already exist in their database and that the matter was being given the necessary attention.
Sadly its been several months and nothing has been done about the issue.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, the movement was forced to come out with the issue early last month since we believe that , fighting corruption in this country is a collective effort.
We spent money, resources and time to investigate this matter and would not allow it to die down just like that.
GRA RESPONSE
After our press conference, GRA issued a statement confirming our allegation.
They eeven indcated that the companies involved were about 2000.
in their own words , they said and i qoute "In 2020, In 2020, it came to the attention of the Authority that multiple Import Declaration Forms (IDFs) issued to importers have been wrongly used for other purposes. IDFs are issued by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and indicate the type, quantity and cost of goods to aid commercial banks to transfer funds and is a regulatory requirement for reconciliation with Customs Documents.
A multi-agency team was formed in the third quarter of 2020 with members drawn from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Finance, GRA, Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) & the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to carry out investigations into the issue. The team’s initial analysis of data on record from the Commercial Banks against Customs data for the calendar year 2019 uncovered approximately 10,000 unreconciled documents from over 2,000 companies with fund transferred in the region of $1.8bn."
Ladies and Gentlemen, sadly, GRA decline to indicate how far they have gone with their investigations, the amount of money they have been able to recover from these companies and how many are going to be prosecuted..
As stated , the last time, we are reliably informed that some of the foreign companies were being left off the hook , but we want them to know that our eagle eyes are widely opened watching their every move.
We are also reliably informed that some individuals are allegedly being compromised , and other information , we would not want to put in public for now. what we want them to know is that ,we know their every move and will expose them till the right thing is done for the state to recover these monies.
In fact, we want the said investigating team to make THEIR FINDINGS PUBLIC.
Honorable Ken Ofori Attah, our Finance Minister is in need of the money to pay workers, for other development. He is in fact tired of getting loan from foreign bodies and we as a Movement are willing to help in retrieving the 1.8 billion allegedly quoted by GRA from these defaulting companies.
You will all agree with me the enormous benefit this country will get if this amount is recovered for government.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me emphasise that we are going to write to the finance minister to expose some, fraudulent and criminal elements undertaking their criminal activites at GRA.
the movement sees this as a a call to duty, a call to put Ghana first and most importantly, a final opportunity for all involved to save their images by doing the right thing and atone for their wrongs within the appropriate quarters while keeping their businesses in positive light.
This is the most charitable we can be as an organisation and this is the last time such an opportunity is going to be served.
Our priority is to see Ghana recoup every penny deprived the state and we will see to it that it happens.
BELOW ARE SOME OF THE COMPANIES ALLEGEDLY INVOLVED IN THE SAID CRIME AND AMOUNT
1. WE2 Sea Foods - $15.733.954.00
2. Three Hills - $16,178.875.00
3. Greensam Enterprise- $ 34,595,671.00
4. Alltrade Enterprise - $ 14,369,183.00
5. Bestmind Ventures- $ 2,523,561.00
6. WW360- 5,070,053.00
7. Crestmond Ventures -$12 , 616,753.00
8. Carmel Ventures- $ 3,359,421.00
9. Ayax Company -$ 15,866,720.00
10. Give always Enterprise- $ 2,796,400.00
11. Westco Investment Limited - $19,925,255.00
12. Trust Link Ventures - $32,732,347.00
17. Stackpro Enterprise - $19,989,558.00
18. Nariox Multi Trading - $2,748,916.00
19. Daricom 2000 Enterprise - $9,978,003.00
20. Masswest Ventures - $2,240,300.00
21. MM Lines Enterprise - $7,234,738.00
NB: the list is very tall, but we shall release the names in batches for the public to know how we are being reap off by these companies.
thanks you for your attention. we shall stop here for your questions .
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