Single window concept: What is it?
I read an article in one of the dailies about a lady who has been engaged to develop a system as part of the clearing procedures to enable the Ghana Customs Service take over the duties of the Destination Inspection Companies in Ghana. I strongly feel that her real image was not capture in the said article and I would therefore like to react to straighten the records.
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In May 2013 I travelled to Abuja, Nigeria to execute a contract for the ECOWAS/GIZ. This assignment took me to the Top Management of the Nigeria Customs Service. During the course of our discussions, the Comptroller-General informed me that a fellow Ghanaian lady had been contracted by the Nigerian Government to develop a programme which would assist their Service to smoothly take over the duties of the Destination Inspection Companies in Nigeria by 1st July, 2013.
The Comptroller-General and his Management team invited the lady to the meeting, introduced her to me and they highly commended her for the good work she was doing; and at that moment I felt very proud to be a Ghanaian.
The question I asked was, a young Ghanaian lady working in the field of Information Technology for almighty Nigeria? Was there no person in Nigeria who was qualified enough to do the work the lady had been contracted to do?
In May, 2014 I went back to Nigeria on another assignment, and I was told by the Customs Administration that due to lack of cooperation from the Destination Inspection Companies and other agencies they could not take over the duties.
This they said was due to an act of sabotage by the affected companies to create disaffection among the trading public and other stakeholders. I was told that the companies refused to give them the needed data for the commencement of their operations; and that where they were given the data they found them to be full of errors thus making their work difficult.
This created apprehension among the public and stakeholders casting doubt as to the ability of the Customs Service to discharge its duties competently.
The Nigerians authorities however, assured me that they were doing everything possible to clear whatever mess they could find in the data provided by the DICs and hoped to start full scale operation within a short period.
Single window
When I visited Nigeria in May this year, I was told the Nigeria Customs Service had fully taken over the duties of the Destination Inspection Companies and that the stakeholders, particularly the trading public had come to realize the advantages of the new system which provides “a Single Window” for Customs operations and the introduction of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR). This goes to establish the fact that the lady was not a failure in Nigeria.
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The Single Window concept provides that traders will start the clearing process from only one end to another end through one and only one “Window”
This system was developed single handedly by a Ghanaian lady for Nigeria, the giant of West Africa and according to the Comptrollers, Deputy Comptrollers and Directors of the Federal Ministry of Finance whom I met in Nigeria in May this year, they are satisfied with the present system of customs operations and that the initial complaints had ceased.
The lady has something to offer the nation. Neither she nor any member of her family belonged to any political party in Nigeria, yet she won the contract on merit to work successfully for the Nigeria Customs Service.
It is for this reason that I implore the authorities to ensure that the lady is given the necessary support and encouragement to execute her programme in Ghana. The Nigerians see her as an icon but her own people seem not to realize what she is capable of doing. What Nigeria commends, Ghana should not condemn.
Introduction of GCNet
When the GCNet was being introduced, the devil who cladded himself as a man of God, and was paid by devilish people, went on the airwaves at dawn for nearly one month to warn Ghanaians that evil men in Ghana wanted to syphoned revenue that would be collected through the GCNet to Nigeria and that the system should not be allowed to be introduced to be introduce in Ghana. But some of us were able to prove to the devil that he is a liar. We stood firm and proved to the devil that he was an enemy of the Ghanaian people.
Being the granddaughter of Mr. Ben and being affiliated to party A or B is not what is important. What is important is that, has she got something good for Mother Ghana?
koodanquah22@yahoo.com