…contract document exposes its attempt to shirk responsibility

A contract document between the Ghana Government and the Ghana Customs Community Network Services Limited (G-CNET) has clearly exposed the latter for its attempt to conceal and shirk its responsibility. In its bogus rejoinder, apparently in reaction to the vintage Crystal Clear Lens publication, which appeared on page 31 of the Ghanaian Times (Monday, May 10, 2010), G-CNET told a palpable lie that it 'does not do reconciliation' (emphasis mine) as far as customs duties and tax payments made by declarants are concerned.

Indeed, G-CNET seems to be telling the world that it has solved all the problems in the Customs administration, or that it has the panacea for all Customs operational problems.

Article 4.1.2 of the contract agreement between Ghana Government and G-CNET states that, “G-CNET shall deploy the CMS (Customs Management System) to assist the GOVERNMENT, acting through CEPS, to capture electronically all customs duty and tax payments, made by declarants, and reconcile these against their respective Bills of Entry or Single Administrative Document, and the Final Customs Valuation Report (FCVR), where applicable, issued by the recognized inspection agency.”

Furthermore, article 4.1.1 of the same contract document states that “G-CNET shall develop, customize, and update a system known as CMS which shall be used by the GOVERNMENT, acting through CEPS in the validation and processing of customs and trade documents, and for recording the results of such validation and processing.

From the above, it is clear that G-CNET has failed to live up to the agreement it signed with the government of Ghana.

The Tracking System While the G-CNET Advertisers Announcement claimed that the Satellite Tracking System is an achievement, Daily Post's analysis has found otherwise.

In fact this is the most hopeless and wasteful system that has been introduced by the G-CNET. A cost-benefit analysis will reveal that the system is just ineffective and it is nothing but a window-dressing. Industry players are therefore daring G-CNET to measure the effectiveness of its system by enumerating the number of vehicles the system has tracked down for not exporting or re-exporting goods and state the percentage of decline in terms of smuggled goods since the introduction of the system. This reporter is reliably informed that the G-CNET system is not designed to track smuggled goods but for tracking hazardous goods. It is also not designed to track movement of goods from say, Ghana to Burkina Faso. In addition, the device is put on containers but not on vehicles, leaving room for the possibility of unscrupulous people removing these tracking devices and throwing them away.

There are indications that the huge tax payers' money used in employing G-CNET is not serving its worthiness. With regards to monitoring and coordinating activities of DICs, G-CNET has been exposed again.

What its advertisers' announcement sought to do was to tell the world that it has no responsibility to check and compare values in the system. That, if two importers present different values for the same commodity and the values are found to be widely different, G-CNET says it has no mechanism to check the anomaly and rectify it? What is the G-CNET then doing? Is it shirking its responsibility? Why has the G-CNET not introduced another product for checking and comparing values which are from the same source? Industry players explain that values can be changed or doctored only through the falsification of documents. Therefore, two different values for same commodity suggest the usage of fraudulent documents.

According to G-CNET, it has introduced numerous products to make the clearance of goods easy and effective. That assertion has been found to be a blanket statement. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report this reporter has sighted reveals that though these numerous products seem to be nice on paper, they do not have any direct impact on the Customs administration.

Taking a closer look at the achievements publicized by G-CNET, it can be deduced that the achievements do not necessarily relate to the effectiveness and efficiency of its system. Payments of taxes and meeting social responsibilities have nothing to do with effective programmes for the collection of duties and taxes.

The relative increases in customs duties do not necessarily mean the effectiveness of the G-CNET system. It could be due to increase in the rate of exchange and the volume of trade within the period. It could also be due to the increase in the rate of duties.

Being a member of the Club 100 has nothing to do with the effective and efficient application of the system. It only means that G-CNET is ranked among the first 100 companies with the highest turnovers. How these companies attained these turnovers is not taken into consideration by the organisers of the Club. Receiving accolade from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the Heart Foundation has nothing to do with best practices for the management of the efficient and effective collection of Customs duties and taxes. In an interview, some Customs Officers rhetorically asked,”… if G-CNET claims to be effective and efficient, how many files has the system been able to close since its inception?” One senior officer remarked, “If the G-CNET is really tailored to cover all Customs activities with its numerous products, then it should be seen to cover effectively, all transactions from the time of importation to the time of final disposal of the goods.

“It should restrict its activities to only the declaration process at the ports. If G-CNET is not in a position to holistically cover all Customs activities, it should come out to say so and stop behaving as if it is in total control of all Customs activities.”

Daily Post can authoritatively conclude that the G-CNET system is a non-performing one to the extent that is does not handle documents. The system has no intelligence and therefore no capacity to track or detect fraudulent documents. Consequently, any data fed into the G-CNET system passes through without let or hindrance. More Anon