UNIPASS
There is a messed up situation at the Takoradi Ports since April 1, when Ghana Link/UNIPASS started to implement its version of the Ghana National Single Window (GNSW) operations, with freight forwarders left stranded in utter disappointment.
While importers are not able to access the Tax Identification Numbers of their companies and other registration details in the new system, the system handlers themselves are having challenges with manifest declarations, handling and processing.
Even Custom officers have expressed frustrations in working with the system, prompting a completely new set of training sessions at a time the system was to have gone live.
The Nana Akufo-Addo appointees, especially Ministers and Deputy Ministers, who have over the months bent over backwards to push the contentious deal to go through are now hot and unable to explain the anomaly that is posing a threat to revenue generation.
There is anxiety among the said appointees that their interests in pushing an unprepared entity to take over the single window operations has been exposed especially when questions are now being asked on the whereabouts of the supposed superior system they vouched for even when no one has seen it at work.
The New Publisher can report that over the period, only one vessel has docked at the said ports yet the company has not been able to handle the about 300 containers on the said vessel.
In normal times, there would have been about some twenty to fifty vessels over same period and the pressure on the Ghana Link/UNIPASS team would have led to an unbearable disruption of revenue generation and trade facilitation.
Tell the President all is well
This has unfortunately been the situation where there is a deliberate attempt to paint a rosy picture on the messy situation to the President by telling him “all is well” and the complaints are only coming from organized rival groups.
Meanwhile the situation on the ground is embarrassing and poses a huge threat to trade facilitation.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, has been mentioned by his Deputy, Kweku Kwarteng, as being one of the persons who travelled to South Korea with the President, Nana Akufo-Addo and after seeing the UNIPASS system at work in that country, gave approval that Ghana should adopt same.
If it is true that the Finance Minister gave his approval to the Ghana Link/UNIPASS contract, it raises a lot of questions on his exact intention in giving approval to commit Ghana to pay some US$93 million for terminating a contract whose total value over a period of 10 years is US$40 million.
Pundits and relevant stakeholder groups have not stopped questioning the economic sense in such an approval.
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Marfo may also have to find answers to why he is advocating for the Ghana Link/UNIPASS system which he claims is ‘superior’ to the existing ones yet he the same Yaw Osafo-Marfo has written to the current operators, GCNet and West Blue, asking the two companies to hand over their systems to the newcomers.
It also remains a mystery why the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, his deputy Kweku Kwarteng and Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Marfo is pushing government to replace a less expensive system that is delivering its mandate with a more expensive one that has not even been tested or tried anywhere in this country.
It has been proved that while the combined fees paid to GCNET and West Blue for their services is 0.54% of FOB, with this Ghana Link/UNIPASS deal, government of Ghana has decided, for whatever reason, to pay 0.75% of FOB.
This was after granting Ghana Link duty- and tax-free importation of their inputs, which GCNET and West Blue do not enjoy.
More soon on jawbreaking revelations on reasons the pushers of the Ghana Link/UNIPASS deal have changed the name ‘UNIPASS’ to something else.
