Political will required to implement single window concept — Experts
Global experts in trade facilitation have called for a strong political will to implement modern trade facilitation processes to help reduce the cost of doing business at the ports.
Advertisement
According to them, while such a move will save the country about $200 million per annum, it will also help facilitate exports and imports of goods and reduce the heavy congestion at the ports.
Speaking at the Ghana National Single Window Media Trade Facilitation workshop at Senchi in the Eastern Region, the speakers from Ghana, Thailand and Switzerland noted that Ghana’s position on the World Bank Trading Across Borders ranking of 171 out of 189 countries globally and 36 out of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa was not the best and so pragmatic efforts were required to improve trade facilitation processes in the country.
The two-day workshop brought together senior editors, financial and marine sector reporters from Ghana and Nigeria.
The Chief Executive Officer of West Blue Consulting, a world-class consulting and technology firm, Ms Valentino Mintah, said it was common knowledge that excessive bureaucracy was the most severe constraint to trade processing in Ghana and Africa as a whole.
She was of the view that African importers and exporters remained uncompetitive in the global business arena, a phenomenon which was largely attributable in part to the number of days it took to complete import and export processes and the attendant costs.
“The collaboration of sister countries — Ghana and Nigeria — on trade facilitation activities will bring about further gains in our quest for increased intra-Africa trade, with the realisation of efficient processes and movement of goods,” Ms Mintah said.
She said: “No matter how much is done as individual institutions and countries in addressing these bottlenecks, it cannot be compared with the positive and timely impact that can be achieved with the joint efforts of all stakeholders.”
Other Trending Stories
Single window in Ghana
On whether the entry of West Blue had made any impact on the country’s revenue generation processes from the ports, she replied in the affirmative but noted that, “We will not jump into hasty conclusions because we are just six months into the business.”
Ms Mintah noted that the processes at the ports had been drastically reduced from two weeks in the past to two days and in some instances, two hours and added that: “We have seen the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) exceed its revenue generation targets for the year 2015 and that is positive.”
She noted that West Blue was rigorously analysing the records to be able to come up with firm conclusions on the impact of its operations and “we will make that public for the people to judge”.
Ms Mintah believes that in the next five years, Ghana’s position in terms of the rankings should drop to 121 from 171 globally and 16 from 36 within the sub-region.
Set targets
Mr Tom Butterly from Switzerland, in his presentation to buttress his call for a strong political will, stressed the need for a national goal to be achieved within the next three years.
According to him, it was necessary to see a 50 per cent reduction in cost and time at the ports and the need for better regulations (trade facilitation for each strategic product of the country).
He also called for a set of ministerial level agency benchmarks and goals for all related regulatory agencies to work collaboratively and with business stakeholders, to simplify and streamline their inter-agency procedures and documentary requirements related to exporting, importing and transiting of strategic products.