Evidence Nails Council Of State Member’s Import Under-Declaration and Alleged Money Laundering

Movement for Truth and Accountability (MT&A), an anti-corruption pressure group has dug up evidence from the database of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to back up revelations that companies belonging to by Ms. Eunice Hinneh, a Council of State Member and a financier of the Akufo Addo campaign had under-declared millions of dollars in import proceeds from her frozen food business.

At a press conference on Tuesday, MT&A presented journalists with figures showing that Three Hills Company and another one called Ayax, under-declared imports to the tune of millions of dollars.

“And again, we have the 2019 GRA database at the port of goods these companies imported which is lower than the amount they declared, some of these companies are Three Hills Company, based in Madina (amount declared was US$16, 178,875.00 whilst the total amount on the database in 2019 was US$8,964,006.00); so where is the rest of the money?,” MT&A queried.

“Another company called Ayax, a Tema-based company which declared an amount of US$15,866,720.00 but the GRA database at Tema in 2019 shows only an amount of US$177,003.00; so where is the rest of the money?”

The MT&A’s statement had been read by its communication Director, Samuel Ampofo.

A few weeks ago, Whatsup News had reported that Ayax Company Limited was owned by Ms. Eunice Hinneh notoriously known for her main company, La Bianca Limited.

Ayax, is a sister company to two others – Whitestone Limited and a frozen foods importer, La Bianca.

In 2020, the companies owned by Ms. Hinneh declared to revenue authorities and the Bank of Ghana approximately US$ 27 million as their total turnover. But the MT&A had discovered that the amount was just about 30% of what those companies actually made.

Allegedly, the way that these companies launder money is that they receive Import Declaration Forms (IDFs) from the government with the impression that they are going to import a given amount of goods.

However, they rather import less of the value of the IDF in respect of the goods that they stated in the IDF and use the rest of the value to import other things.

The alleged subterfuge works the other way round with exports as well. With such latitude, importers and exporters can import and export anything to anywhere, including narcotic drugs as is being alleged.

The scheme also naturally yields the leverage to evade taxes. According to the GRA, US$1.8billion was illegally transferred through ports in 2019 alone.

According to the MT&A, this loophole which is said to have cost Ghana up to US$1.8billion in taxes is thriving because the Akufo-Addo government has been enabling it. 

“Apart from two Council of State members who have been indicted in money laundering some of Akufo-Addo’s appointees are also involved,” the MT&A said.

 “We want to inform Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia the Vice President of the Republic and the Chairman of the Economic Management team that until his party members put a stop to money laundering, the cedi will continue to depreciate and Ghanaians will continue to complain and blame the government.”

Mr. Bediako added that the axis of collaborators include rogue bank managers as well.

According to the GRA, up to 1,800, import and export companies are involved in the alleged criminal scheme. 

In early September when Whatsup News reported the story, the Importers and Exporters Association held a press conference and attempted to rubbish the story.

According to Executive Secretary, Samson Asaki Awingobit, Whatsup News had been mischievous and churned out an ill-informed story.

“This misleading information has been compounded with an ill-informed news publication by WHATSUP NEWS, an E-Newspaper which also alleged in its 1st September 2021 edition of fraud on the part of one of the country’s largest importers of frozen foods. It is sad to note that this series of misleading reports have done more harm than good to most of these reputable companies that were mentioned in the said report”, Mr. Awingobit said.

 And then in an attempt to explain away the manipulation of IDFs, he said “It would also interest you to know that, if an importer pays 2million dollars to his/her supplier for goods, he/she is not bound to receive the said goods at a go. It could take probably a year or the goods may come in tranches even though full payment has already been made and captured in the IDF. This does not mean the said importer is cheating the state or under-declaring what he paid for.”

 Mr. Awingobit is also reported as claiming that the GRA has cleared all the companies involved. But Mr. Bediako of the MT&A challenged the IEAG to also come out with its evidence contrary to what the GRA database has thrown up.

He said the anti-corruption pressure group has written to lawyers of some of the companies involved, including Olam Ghana, Kasapreko, Voltic, Knoxville and others for response to what is shown in the GRA database and all of them have been shying away.

He also points out that GRA, the Economic and Organized Crimes Office (EOCO) and the Financial Intelligence Center have launched investigations into the issues that they have raised, asking how these bodies could launch investigations if their claims are false and ill-informed as the IEAG has claimed.

“We decided not to come out till GRA, FIC and EOCO finished their investigations but a so-called Importers and Exporters Association who do not know anything about this case came out to attack us with a baseless accusation,” MT&A fired back.

“This group organized a press conference in Accra claiming GRA has cleared these companies that we are alleging are involved in money laundering and tax evasion meanwhile GRA has come out to say that two thousand companies are under investigation so why should this association come to say these companies involved have been cleared. Has GRA taken any money from these companies to clear them? We want to know.”