Paperless Port Cost Gov’t Nothing– Bawumia

The Vice President, Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, has indicated that government was able to achieve the paperless port project without spending a penny.

At the opening of the Single Window Conference in Accra yesterday, Dr. Bawumia said the project was achieved as a result of a collaborative effort from the Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs, Ministry of Finance, and some service providers.

“Fundamentally we did this by streamlining processes. The systems were there but they were still very manual. We looked at how to do it. We got best advice on how to do it from others and we just streamlined processes and made sure that the processes that we are now implementing were largely paperless”, he stressed.

Single Window

He lauded the Ghana Community Network (GCNet), for providing Single Window E- solutions services for trade facilitation and revenue mobilization in the country.

According to him, the single window platform will ensure an efficient and productive use of resources, and enhance collection of fees, duties and penalties.

“For compliance authorities all over the world, the single window ensures the enhancement of risk analysis, reduces corruption and ensures more comprehensive streamline and automated compliance process.”

Touching on the benefits that the Single Window imposes on importers, Dr. Bawumia said it will reduce cost through minimum clerical efforts, facilitate faster goods clearance, foster predictability and reliability in consignment clearance and reduce what he called ‘time-consuming, face-to-face interactions.

According to him, the goal of government is to build the most business-friendly economy in Africa, and urged delegates and participants to share the experiences they had gained from their various countries towards making the conference one of a kind.

The Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, on his part, said the role of government in implementing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and the Single Window System is a collective responsibility that demands the needed push to see to its success.

“From the perspective of government, we believe that implementing the single window will help improve revenue yields, improve trade compliance, enable the use of sophisticated risk management techniques for control and enforcement purposes, and reinforce effective and efficient deployment of resources in a more predictable and timely manner”, he said.

The International Single Window Conference dubbed; ‘Trade Facilitation Agreement and e-Commerce Development: The Role of Single Window as a Catalyst’, is being held in Accra, with the objectives of deepening Customs Management processes, and improving the ease of doing business in Ghana.

Source: Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum/ The Publisher