Government to review operations at ports months after going paperless

Ghana Revenue Authority, GRA, has disclosed that it is preparing to take a holistic review of the system automation and paperless operations at the Tema and Takoradi Ports.

After four months of the implementation of the paperless system, the Customs Division has identified areas with challenges and willing to address it in other not to disrupt revenue mobilization.

In an exclusive interview with JoyBusiness, Deputy Commissioner in charge of Policy and Programmes at the GRA, Patrick Yawutse noted, the review is very critical to the success of the programme.

He said, “Honestly speaking, the delays should not be acceptable and therefore we must be honest to accept that people have challenges there and then we have to improve and also look at compliance as well."

Patrick Yawutse said, “Where we are having our biggest challenge is examination…But the good news is that management has approved that we should review the project.”

He said, “We should be starting next week... The request has been approved, the project evaluation outline has been completed. We will look at the key areas where we have very difficult problems; that will be the first stage that we will tackle.”

“we will look at the more difficult areas as a [way] of review and do the reorganization.”

According to the Deputy Commissioner, “The review should take one week.”

In May 2017, the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia gave directives at a port efficiency conference.

The directives included the removal of all customs barriers on the country’s transit corridor, a joint inspection by all regulatory agencies at the ports and a hundred percent paperless transactions at the ports.

He followed up with an official road map of the paperless process flow to guide the operators and agencies in the port clearance chain.

Dr Bawumia claimed that an initial assessment of the implementation has shown a revenue collection improvement of 56 percent.

According to him, revenue at the ports increased from GHc130 million in the first week of September 2016, to GHc213 million in the same period for 2017.