Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyeremanteng has assigned reasons for the introduction and subsequent implementation of trade facilitation system – Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) – at the nation’s sea and land borders.
Speaking at a forum organised by the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) sector of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority at the Terminal 3, the Minister noted that ICUMS was introduced by government to check the multiplicity of service providers in trade facilitation processes at the country’s borders as well as challenges with revenue generation.
One of the reasons underpinning the introduction of ICUMS was to address the challenge of the multiplicity of services providers who sometimes worked in an uncoordinated manner suggesting the need for a comprehensive, integrated and end to end system
Alan Kyeremanteng
The Trade Minister also added that the multiplicity of service providers on different platforms, made it difficult to manage the interplay between the various stakeholders in the previous systems.
The second reason for the introduction of ICUMS the Minister noted is to enhance revenue generation at the country’s sea and land borders as audits of the previous trade facilitation systems showed revenue generation challenges.
The real reason the change was not just critical but appropriate was because if you audit the implementation of all the previous systems you realize that we weren’t doing well in revenue mobilization and if indeed all was going well, then we ought not as a country have challenges with revenue generation but we did, and so it was obvious that it was time for a change
Alan Kyeremanteng
He added that, the implementation of ICUMS at the ports despite some teething problems in its initial stages of implementation, has significantly improved Ghana’s port revenue mobilization efforts.
