The Implementation Of The Papaerless Operations At The Ports

Over the past few years, operations at the country’s ports of entry have been characterised by unbearable delays, frustrations and allegations of bribery and corruption as well as loss of revenue to the State.

To overcome these problems and sanitize the system, government has decided to make operations at the ports paperless. This is meant to reduce or eliminate human intervention as much as possible from the system and, thereby, eliminate any possible payment of money to influence operations.

New measures which effectively come into full operations today are aimed at expediting the clearance of imported goods within a maximum of four hours and also help to eliminate revenue losses to the State, promote transparency, increase revenue, reduce cost of doing business for importers and, ultimately, bring about efficiency at the ports.

Port efficiency is needed for rapid trade facilitation for importers, eliminate frustrations and make it easy for business men and women to go about their duties.

The ports are national assets which have seen massive investments that must be recouped by the state for socio-economic development and also for the common good.

The new system is heavily dependent on technology, so stakeholders at the ports have been educated to make use of the technology to facilitate their operations.

This means that all importers are expected to initiate their processes online and make all declarations in the same way to facilitate the process so as to avoid undue delays.

Also, under the new system, the 17 agencies that inspected goods at the ports have been reduced to only two, namely, the Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Authority.

Again, there will be joint-inspection exercises and not but not separate inspection exercises as was the case in the past.

Ghana is not an island onto itself but part of the international community of nations that must ensure effective trade facilitation in line with best international best practices.

It is, therefore, appropriate and good that at long last measures have been put in place to ensure that there is maximum efficiency at the ports.

In Dubai, for example, in using the same technology, importers are able to clear their goods at the ports within one and half seconds, showing their level of efficiency as compared to Ghana which has its operations characterized by delays emanating from inefficiency.

Under the new system, importers are expected to clear their goods within a maximum of four hours.

This will be a great improvement over previous operations at the ports. With time, the system is expected to improve itself until the clearance time is significantly reduced further. Stakeholders are enjoined to obey the new rules of operation and collaborate with each other to achieve the desired maximum impact.

The country has come of age and, therefore, needs to operate efficiently when it comes to transactions at the ports.

This will not only ensure rapid operations but also eliminate undue delays, eradicate bribery and corruption as well as effectively rake in the needed revenue for national development.

The country deserves to advance in her rapid economic development and certainly the paperless operations are part of measures needed to bring this about for the purpose of smooth economic transformation.

This explains why all hands must be on deck to support the new paperless transaction at our ports.

DR. KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO, HEAD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS, GHANA STANDARDS AUTHORITY.

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