Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu has chided the Commissioner of GRA’s Customs Division, Colonel Kwadwo Damoah for verbally attacking the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, over a report indicting him.
Kissi Agyebeng was criticized by Colonel Damoah after his office released a report on corruption-related offences involving the Labianca Group of Companies and the GRA’s Customs Division.
“If you read it very well, there is nothing in it. It is hollow,” Col. Damoah said of the report.
Colonel Damoah had said these allegations were being levelled against him due to the underlying friction between himself and the Special Prosecutor.
However, Mr. Kpebu rubbished Colonel Damoah’s claims, saying the Special Prosecutor acted within the remit of his mandate in exposing the rot.
“It lies ill in Colonel Damoah’s mouth to make those comments [against the Special Prosecutor]. He should spare us the invectives, the vitriol is too much. In terms of the ranking of public officers, OSP ranks higher than him. I think he should apologise,” he argued on Citi TV’s Point of View.
He said Colonel Damoah’s attempts at justifying granting tax waivers for the Labianca company are unjustifiable, as the GRA does not support such a practice.
“The Commissioner General of GRA gave a directive to stop this practice of giving discounts, so when I heard it is happening daily, I doubted it.”
What the report said about Col. Damoah’s role
One of Col. Damoah’s deputies, Joseph Adu Kyei, was cited in the OSP report for issuing unlawful customs advance ruling in favour of Labianca company, thus denying the country the needed revenue.
This led to the reduction of the values of intended imports between a range of 5 percent and 10 percent
below the benchmark values.
The ruling was said to have been approved by Col. Damoah and did not appear to have been brought to the notice of the Commissioner-General, according to the report.
The Special Prosecutor has so far retrieved over GHc1 million from Labianca Group of Companies.