UNIPASS: Only 450 out of 750 clearing agents able to access ICUMS – Adongo

Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central Constituency, Isaac Adongo, has disclosed only 450 out of 750 clearing agents are able the access the newly Integrated Customs Management Systems (ICUMS) at the ports.

According to him, some 300 clearing agents are not registered on the new system thus the 450 actively present are only resulting to the bottlenecks in clearing of goods at the ports.

Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb, the member of the Trade Committee in Parliament said; “Out of 750 clearing agents that were connected to the existing West Blue-GCNet systems to enable the workload to be shared equally, only 450 are now registered unto this new manual system [UNIPASS/ICUMS].”

Isaac Adongo however claimed he had personally witnessed the assessment of a 2009 Honda Civic vehicle cleared for zero value.

“I have seen with my naked eye that the duty of a 2009 Honda Civic vehicle was accessed for zero value. How can you clear a car for zero duty? When IMANI issued their statement complaining about all these challenges faced at the ports, the port managers rather claimed that it was a fraudulent manipulation done by a clearing agent who allegedly entered the value of a vehicle at US$1 dollar, how can that be possible?” Mr. Adongo quizzed.

Managers of Ghana’s port have reverted to the manual clearing of goods following the challenges associated with the deployment of the UNIPASS system to replace existing GCNet and West Blue systems.

This follows the new port clearing system; UNIPASS, which processes documents and payments through one window. It is a departure from the previous system in which ‘valuation and classification’ and ‘risk management and payment’ were handled by different entities.

The system, spearheaded by Ghana Link Services Ltd, in collaboration with Customs UNIPASS International Agency (CUPIA) of the Korean Customs Service; the designer of the system, replaces the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAARS) and the Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS) jointly operated by the Customs Division, the Ghana Community Network Services (GCNet) Ltd and West Blue Consulting.