Following a highly-classified crime carried out by Labianca Company owned by One Eunice Jacqueline Buah Asomah-Hinneh, the office of the Special Prosecutor was said to have recovered a pathetic 1 million cedis.
Frank Asare filed a written complaint on November 16, 2021, with the Office of the Special Prosecutor (hereinafter, OSP) against Labianca Group of Companies and its affiliates (hereinafter, Labianca) and the Customs Department of the Ghana Revenue Authority.
The complainant claims that the unlawful markdowns or reductions of benchmark values were obtained and are still being obtained primarily because the beneficial owner and Chief Executive of Labianca, Ms. Eunice Jacqueline Buah Asomah-Hinneh, engage in influence attempting to sell through her roles as a member of the Council of State and a member of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.
The complainant claimed that Labianca and the Customs Division had been engaging in ongoing fraudulent, illegal, and dubious business practices that had led to the illegal marking down or lowering of benchmark values for frozen food imports made by Labianca under the pretense of customs advance judgments.
Because of the allegedly corrupt and other illegal acts, the complainant claimed Labianca had obtained an unfair competitive market advantage in the frozen food industry. Assumed Labianca subsidiaries Rafano Frozen Foods Company Limited and Yoba Capital Limited were also said to have obtained the same unfair competitive market advantage.
After concluding that the complaint fell inside the purview of the OSP, the Special Prosecutor gave the go-ahead to launch a preliminary inquiry under regulation 5 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (Operations) Regulations, 2018. (L.I. 2374). The preliminary study was carried out as discreetly as the circumstances would have allowed, respecting both the privacy of the subjects and the legitimate commercial dealings of the cited companies.
Over GHS1 million was recovered by the Office of the Special Prosecutor at the conclusion of the investigations. Parts of an OSP report include, “The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) recovers almost GHC1 million GHC1,074, 627.15) from Labianca Foods in unpaid import duties. “The OSP has also urged for broader probes into Customs Division of GRA.”
The special prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, appeared to be defending some extremely well-connected individuals in government, which was the underlying reality behind the entire issue. Speaking volumes is the fact that Ms. Eunice Jacqueline Buah Asomah-Hinneh, a council of state member and the owner of the Labianca Company, was only required to pay 1 million cedis for the serious crime she committed by routinely under-declaring and misclassifying containers containing frozen goods.
As a result of our inquiry, we have learned that Labianca imports fish and poultry over 375 containers per month, earning an average monthly profit of $10 million. The business, which continues to be Ghana’s top importer of chicken, has taken use of the power and connections of its owner to import a wide variety of goods from around the world with essentially no tax obligations.
