GRA gets e-payment platform

Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in partnership with Ecobank and West Blue Consulting has launched an electronic card for the payment of customs duty as tax collector seeks to seal loopholes for tax evasion.

The platform dubbed: “The Ghana National Single Window CashXPress Card” is a reloadable pre-paid card that offers a new, convenient and secure way to make trade payments easy.

Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, said the card helps to provide secure transactions, increases transparency and financial inclusion, eliminates the use of cloned or forged trade documents and the delays associated with bank processes.

He said the Ghana National Single Window project was initiated on September 1, 2015 to enhance the country’s trade and economic development and secure and increase government revenue.

Mr Terkper said the project was developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in 2005 in an effort to simplify, harmonise and standardise international trade procedures and associated information flows.

He said the project was a government-business partnership to strengthen the country’s trade competitiveness and enhance the participation of the business community in the global market.

The Minister said the electronic card would facilitate trade transactions at the ports as well as reduce time and costs spent in doing trade businesses.

Mr George Blankson, Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, said the national single window project has been beneficial since its implementation, saying it provides traders with the critical single entry point to facilitate trade transaction.

He said the electronic card would offer shippers easy, flexible and convenient payment options through the use card payment.

The Association of Ghana Industries and the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders welcomed the initiative saying it would reduce the human interface in trade transactions, allowing most processes to be undertaken automatically.