National Security operatives yesterday evening made away with confiscated diesel by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority at the Bosomtwe Sam Fishing Harbour, Sekondi without authorisation.
According to the leader of the Patrol Team of Customs Division that embarked on the operation, Wilfred Amoquandoh, the Unit on 29th November at 2pm was embarking on its routine surveillance to combat smuggling of illegal Petroleum Products where they came across a vessel offloading fuel into some stationed tanks at the Fishing Harbour.
The Customs Team intercepted the local vessel discharging the fuel content into the tanks and put their seal on the already discharged fuel in the two seperate tanks.
The Customs Team took further steps to verify the authenticity of the product at their lab and it came out that it was consumable (diesel).
Wilfred Amoquandoh, went on further to explain that yesterday evening, his men were still protecting the products when some group of armed men from the National Security with excort from the Military notified him that they have been ordered to take away the products without any authorized note from the Customs Division.
”The National Security confronted us yesterday, 2nd December 2021 to take over the product, but we were not sure because it was a night patrol and you cannot release the goods to go just like that but they gave re-enforcement today, 3rd December 2021 with escort from the military who were fully armed, now as you can see, the army is here assisting them, the case is under investigation but they have taken over. We have taken evidence of what is going and we have also given it to our leaders, we are security services we cannot fight so the matter is being handled at the top level”, he said.
Explaining the official procedure that allows the release of confiscated products, he said that when the product was confisticated, a detention note was put on the product to make room for rectification before releasing but in the current case the right procedure has not been followed by National Security operatives and management is not happy about it .
As of yesterday around 8am, one of stationed Fuel Tanks have been offloaded into a fuel Tanker vehicle which was getting ready to leave the Fishing Harbour .
The case has currently been be referred to the head quarters of Ghana Revenue Authority’s Customs division for further investigation.
