GRA: Ghanaian businesses must meet origin rules for AfCFTA benefits
Customs officer Joycelyn Ntiako says the source of raw materials and the processing they undergo help determine eligibility. Manufacturers using inputs from different countries must check the rules that apply to their finished products.
Businesses seeking preferential treatment under the African Continental Free Trade Area must ensure their goods meet the agreement’s Rules of Origin, the Ghana Revenue Authority has cautioned.
Joycelyn Ntiako, a revenue officer with the GRA’s Customs Division, said eligibility depends on criteria that establish a product’s economic nationality, including where it originates and how it has been processed.
The requirement is particularly relevant to manufacturers using materials from different countries. The origin of one ingredient does not, by itself, settle whether the finished product qualifies as Ghanaian under the agreement.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, October 7 2026, Ms Ntiako explained that Rules of Origin provide the legal basis for determining where a product belongs in international trade.
“When we talk about origin, origin simply means the economic nationality of a product. The product was born somewhere,” she said.
“So when we talk about Rules of Origin, it is a legal criterion that is used to determine the economic nationality of a product in international trade.”
Her comments came during a discussion about the practical implications of AfCFTA for businesses and the requirements they must satisfy to access preferential treatment.
“Before a product can enjoy preferential treatment, it needs to meet one of these criteria, which is known as Rules of Origin,” she said.
Ms Ntiako outlined two broad categories: products wholly obtained in a
country and products substantially transformed through processing involving inputs from different countries.
She used cocoa and chocolate production to illustrate the distinction.
A cocoa bean grown in Ghana and exported without being transformed, she explained, would be wholly obtained from Ghana. Turning that cocoa into chocolate using other ingredients raises a different question about the origin of the finished product.
“If I added milk, sugar and other things to it, but the milk I got from France, I got the sugar from Togo, and I mixed it into a chocolate bar, even though the cocoa bean is from Ghana, it was transformed,” she said.
In that situation, specific origin rules would need to be applied to determine whether the chocolate could be regarded as a Ghanaian-origin product for AfCFTA purposes.
Ms Ntiako’s explanation highlights a distinction businesses must understand before seeking AfCFTA preferences: where an ingredient comes from and the qualifying origin of the finished goods may require separate assessments.