The newly introduced Integrated Customs Management System ICUMS formerly dubbed UNIPASS, has successful processed more than 4200 Bill of Entry’s (BOE’s) from custom house agents and freight forwarders after a week of deployment, at the Tema Port.

This indicates that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), its technical partners Ghana Link Network Services Limited and other stakeholders are effectively resolving the main issues raised by freight forwarders and clearing house agents last week when ICUMS fully took over all international trade processing and documentation after the erstwhile single window platform deployed by GC Net since 2016 was switched off at the country’s biggest port.

While some clearing agents still have complaints, they are dwindling significantly by the day, for the first raising hopes that the new platform may be able to handle its responsibilities after all.

Instructively, the number of BOEs processed by the new platform rose continuously through the first four days of last week, peaking at 1,341 on Thursday.

While full day statistics for last Friday were not available at the time of going to press, the 880 BOEs processed by mid afternoon suggests that the trend of rising BOE completions continued until the end of the week.

Freight forwarders however point out that the statistics made available by Norvan Acquaye-Hayford, the public relations manager of Ghana Link do not cover unsuccessful attempts at processing BOEs and outstanding Bills being carried over to this week. But no figures have been made available to support their assertions that these are considerable in number.

On the first day of the change over of platforms, Monday June 1, the numerous challenges faced by some importers, freight forwarders and clearing agents – in part the result of a knowledge gap even after training and in part the result of technical shortcomings – resulted in the ICUMS processing just 400 Bill of Entry’s (BOE’s). But since then, with a rapid response team put in place by GRA and Ghana Link, the number of successfully processed BOEs has risen by the day.

Takoradi Port and other entry points

ICUMS which has been operational at the Takoradi Port since April 1, 2020, is said to have recorded some 4,481 Bills of Entry (BOEs) on the new clearance platform.

The BOE’s are said to have been recorded between rollout date April 1 and June 5, 2020, on the new platform — Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS).

The Takoradi Port, which handles about 35 percent of the country’s seaborne traffic, is Ghana’s second-biggest port.