The Minister-designate for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyeremanten, has revealed that the deployment of the Integrated Customs Management System at the Ports of Ghana in 2020 saw a cumulative increment of government revenue by 176% from July to December that year.

Taking his turn at the Ministerial vetting by parliament, the Trade Minister revealed that the deployment of ICUMS saw a 31% increment in revenue in August, 34% in September, 34% in October, and 35% in November.

He added that in July 2020 when the ICUMS was deployed it saw a 23% revenue increment compared to the same period in 2019 while December 2020 saw a 19% increment compared to December 2019.

The Trade and Industry Minister-designate said it is undoubted that this upward increment in revenue mobilization is attributable to the ICUMS, and this feat is even more impressive considering the fact that the system was deployed in the period of a global COVID-19 pandemic.

Alan Kyeremanten attributed the leakages suffered in the country’s revenue mobilisation over the years to the multiplicity of service providers that had for a long time characterized doing business at Ghana’s ports.

“We had so many different companies providing different kinds of services and very often not fully integrated and coordinated with each other. This regrettably, has been the main reason why there had been leakages in our trade facilitation landscape and by extension our revenue mobilization space,” the Minister-designate asserted.

He said the intervention of bringing on board the Integrated Customs Management System was to maximise the operational efficiency of Customs systems which he believes is being achieved.

“I took a bold decision that we needed for once in our country, to put in place a comprehensive fully integrated end-to-end trade facilitation system that would provide operational efficiency for imports and exports, to enhance revenue mobilization and also to deepen our security arrangements.”

He explained that due procurement processes were followed in contracting ICUMS and his team is ever prepared for any court action on judgement debt by the previous vendors.

“The provisions of the original agreements give rights of government to early termination upon the payment of appropriate compensation. So if GCNet and West Blue decide to go to court, we will be ably represented there,” he said.