Dr Gyamfi was speaking at a press conference on the  irregularities at the ports, which includes under invoicing and  under declaration, in Accra.He commended government for the reforms introduced to ensure efficiency at the ports, seeking to promote manufacturing and competitiveness of the local industry.

He said efforts by government to sanitize port procedures through the recent introduced paperless system and Single Window at the port have come under serious threat from cartels, which continue to wreck the nation. 

He said the AGI would continue to endorse the paperless  system as a major initiative by government to ease doing business in Ghana. He said paying taxes was mandatory, yet some criminal minded importers have found cunning ways to evade taxes and duties  through the connivance with some revenue officials at the ports.

He said these practices at the ports, which have been  perpetrated for years, threaten government’s major policies such as the one district, one factory, as well as plans to create an  industrialized economy and reduce unemployment levels in the  country.

He said the practices continue to take a heavy toll on their  fruit and juice sector, electrical cables, tomatoes paste, canned  tuna, cooking oil, biscuits and fast moving consumer goods in  general.

The President said in 2016, the Ghana Revenue Authority,  Customs Division, missed its annual revenue target by 4.6 per  cent and out of the GH¢ 10.82 billion target in 2016, Customs  only managed to collect GH¢10.33 billion, a shortfall of GH ¢495.84 million.

“Also in 2017, the GRA missed its revenue target by 9 per  cent, although the Division was tasked to collect GH¢13.94  billion for that year, data from the GRA showed that it only  managed to collect GH¢12.69 billion, representing a shortfall of  GH¢1.25 billion,” he added.

He said it was one of the major reasons, why the  manufacturing sub-sector, which represented a critical mass of  the real sector of the economy, continued to underperform,  registering an average growth rate of 1.8 per cent over the last  four years.

He expressed the hope that government would inaugurate the  Ghana International Trade Commission to address some of these  malpractices in the system. Mr Kofi Nsiah-Opoku, a member of the AGI, who has been directly affected, said the situation had compelled him to cut the labour size, to avert a complete shutdown of his business.