Kwame Baffoe nicknamed Abronye DC, Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has stated that two officers from the Ghana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) Customs Division approached him to inquire about the business activities of a Council of State Member.
However, he said that later investigations revealed that the Custom Officers were in direct business competition with Jacqueline Buah, a member of the Council of State who also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of LaBianca Company Limited and Awo Frozen Foods.
He claimed one of the custom officers was doing the same business as the Council of State Member but were trying to incite the public against the businesswoman
Abronye who is also the Executive Director of a new civil society organization called Patriotic Forum For Accountable Governance (PaFFAG) said in a statement that the two custom officers through their representative contacted him to discuss the business woman.
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“Out of courtesy, I scheduled to meet them. During the meeting, they noted that, Madam Jacqueline Buah also Known as Mrs Asomahene Chief Executive Officer of LaBianca Company Limited and Awo Frozen Foods, a Council of State member, and a business woman who operates one of the biggest frozen food companies in Ghana is causing financial loss to the state by evading taxes.”
According to Abronye, the two custom officials brought along printed documents purporting to be evidence of Labianca’s business transactions and interestingly they added an amount of GH¢100,000 to the documents and promised to pay more but considering my political reputation I rejected the money outright but accepted the documents to review them.”
He said he queried the custom officers about the money once they claimed they had legitimate concerns and cautioned them about any calculated attempt to use him to drag the name businesswoman into the mud.
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According to Abronye he started running independent checks with the Ghana Revenue Authority and other agencies to ascertain the actual facts and his investigations revealed more than what he anticipated.
He said he realized that “the two custom officers were not just officials of the state but were actually competitors to Labianca,” adding “one of the custom officers had registered a limited liability company known as TKO Frozen Foods that also engages in the same business as Labianaca.”
According to Abronye, the said custom officer evaluates his own containers and clears them, adding that he checks also revealed that “Labianca has legitimately gained 5% discount from the Ghana Revenue Authority not through her political affiliation but due to her compliance to taxes and the fact that her company is one of the companies in Ghana that pays the highest taxes.”
Abronye said that will be filing a petition against those two custom officials with CHRAJ for conflict of interest.
