Set up revenue courts at the ports to deal with tax infractions - GCNet

The Ghana Community Network Services Limited, GCNet, has urged government to speedily set up revenue courts at the country’s ports as part of key measures to address leakages in the revenue mobilisation chain.

According to the Tema Branch & Transit Manager of GCNet, Mr. Jimmy Allotey, the establishment of revenue courts at the ports and the full enforcement of post clearance audit laws with punitive sanctions would help in the fight to block all leakages in the revenue generation stream.

The call was made when a seventeen member delegation from the Select Committee on Finance of Parliament paid a working visit to GCNet to familiarise themselves with the company’s role in trade facilitation, ease of doing business, business competitiveness and revenue mobilisation through e-solutions to facilitate government business as well as that of the private sector.

Led by the chair of the committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, the members were taken on a guided tour of the operational facilities including the state-of-the-art data centre by the Executive Director, Mr. Emmanuel Darko and members of senior management and also briefed on the operational structure of the company and also some key product deployments about to be launched including the Enhanced Valuation Module (e-Valuator) and the new GCMS III among others.

Mr. Darko told the committee members that GCNet was currently engaged in an advocacy to develop a charter to fast-track integration of the reporting regimes of the various agencies on its e-MDA portal to enhance synergy in fast-tracking processes to facilitate clearance processes.

He further stressed the need for the necessary political will to address challenges that needed urgent attention so the full benefits of the e-solutions deployed by GCNet are realised.

Chairman of the committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah noted the massive infrastructure and network base of GCNet clearly positioned it as the leader in the provision of e-Solutions and must be supported especially as an example of one of the most successful Private Public Partnership (PPPs) in the sub-region and Africa.

He reiterated the committee’s commitment to work with GCNet on key proposals made to government to address unnecessary complications as a result of non-clarity of roles of some new entrants in the trade facilitation space. Members of the committee also used the occasion to learnmore about the robustness of the valuation models currently in use to drive revenue

The visit also provided an opportunity for the Committee members to be briefed on one of the key e-solutions – the Letter of Commitment module deployed at no cost to the Bank of Ghana – to help track exports proceeds into the country and also boost the availability of forex in the economy.

The Product Development Manager of GCNet, Mr. Carl Sackey noted that revenues from exports proceeds had increased significantly with the introduction of the LoC which initially started with gold exports and now extended to cover all exports.

He also announced that to further strengthen the tracking of exports proceeds, for instance, the Bank of Ghana had directed that all exports payments should be accompanied with a mandatory SWIFT number and added that as a result LoC had significantly aided the elimination of human elements and interference in export monitoring.