{"id":287048,"date":"2025-11-16T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/287048\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T16:05:08","slug":"31-billion-lost-through-import-declaration-abuse-ato-forson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/287048\/","title":{"rendered":"$31 billion lost through import declaration abuse \u2013 Ato Forson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/television\/news\/LIVE-Finance-Minister-presents-2026-Budget-Statement-136027\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/50117762.295.jpg\" alt=\"These Import Declaration Forms had no corresponding imports\" title=\"These Import Declaration Forms had no corresponding imports\" width=\"295\" height=\"166\" \/> play video<\/a>These Import Declaration Forms had no corresponding imports<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\">Minister of Finance, Dr <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=2581\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cassiel Ato Forson<\/a>, has disclosed that the country lost more than GH\u00a231 billion between April 2020 and August 2025 through Import Declaration Forms (IDFs) that had no corresponding imports. <\/p>\n<p>He described the revelations as alarming, warning that such financial leakages continue to drain the country&#8217;s reserves and undermine economic stability.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting the 2026 Fiscal Budget to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3205\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Parliament<\/a> on Thursday, November 13, 2025, Dr Forson noted that Ghana processed 525,814 foreign-exchange transactions during the five-year period, amounting to approximately GH\u00a283 billion. <\/p>\n<p>However, only 10,440 of those transactions could be verified against actual imports.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/business\/Importers-of-excavators-now-require-prior-approval-from-the-Ministry-of-Transport-Finance-minister-2009691\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;Importers of excavators now require prior approval from the Ministry of Transport&#8217; \u2013 Finance minister<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetween April 2020 and August 2025, over 525,000 transactions amounting to an equivalent of $83 billion were processed through ICOPS. But only 10,440 of these transactions were linked to actual imports,\u201d he told lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>The minister explained that this discrepancy left an equivalent of $31 billion transferred abroad without any documentary evidence of goods entering Ghana. <\/p>\n<p>He lamented that such practices not only weaken the cedi but also deprive the economy of resources that could have been invested in critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese leaks bleed our reserves, weaken the Ghana cedi, and deprive the economy of resources that should have been used to build schools, roads and hospitals,\u201d Dr Forson said.<\/p>\n<p>The minister stated there there will be tighter monitoring of foreign-exchange transactions and stricter enforcement of import verification systems at the ports. <\/p>\n<p>The move is to seal all leakages at the ports.<\/p>\n<p>SA\/EB<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>All you need to know about Ghana&#8217;s new vehicle number plates |BizTech:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"play videoThese Import Declaration Forms had no corresponding imports Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has disclosed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-287048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}