Paperless port operations to be seamless — Customs boss

The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has called on the public not to be apprehensive about the implementation of paperless processes at the country’s ports aimed at reducing the time for doing business there and cost.

The implementation of the policy, which will take off on Monday, September 4, 2017, following the declaration of September 1 as a public holiday, is creating apprehension among the importing public.

The paperless reform is part of control methods by the government to ensure optimal revenue collection, public health, safety and security, with minimal or no physical contact with the consignments.

The need to speed up port clearance processes, as well as maintain control, has necessitated the need for the adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) solutions which are to reduce business cost and save time.

The Commissioner of the Customs Division of the GRA, Mr Isaac Crentsil, speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday, indicated that the processes would be seamless once declarants did not put in false information about their imports.

He said between January and August this year, the division had collected only GH¢7.2 billion of its GH¢14 billion target for 2017 and so the reform could help the division fill or perhaps exceed the GH¢8 million shortfall.
 
What importers must do

Walking the Daily Graphic through the processes, Mr Crentsil indicated that for an importer to clear cargo, the product must first be registered and the owner also registered as an importer who could engage the services of a registered freight forwarding agent or a customs house agent to clear the cargo on his or her behalf.

The agent, he indicated, would have to submit the documentation covering the product registration from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) through an electronic platform to the Customs Technical Services Bureau (CTSB) for  classification and valuation reports (CCVR) to be issued to kick-start the process.  

The issued CCVR allows an importer or agent to effect the payment of customs duty on the consignment, using visa card, Internet banking or mobile money.

The introduction of the electronic payment platform, he indicated, had been made possible with the integration of the Customs Management System to commercial banks in charge of revenue collection on behalf of the state.

“The banks and terminal operators have been integrated to facilitate electronic payment of import revenue, hence the introduction of the e-payment facilities to make the processes seamless,” Mr Crentsil explained.

“Presently, only the Bill of Laden (BIL), which is a legal document covering imports, will come in manual copies. Another document that will come in manual copy is the exit waybill which is required to be shown at the point of exit when the cargo is being moved from the offloading terminal,” he added.

End of illicit bargaining

Asked whether the implementation of the reform would end the practice where some importers and agents bargained for the reduction of import values with customs officials, Mr Crentsil suggested that the risk management mechanisms in place would automatically profile the declarations keyed into the system, “such that there will be no need for Customs to raise values when they suspect that importers have under-valued the cost of imports”.

"The importing public does not need to be apprehensive because the paperless system will rather ensure seamless processes which will ultimately reduce business cost and time,” he added.

 Risk management

The Coordinator of the paperless project, Mr Emmanuel Gilbert Ohene, also indicated that the risk management system would also determine whether consignments were duly valued by the declarants.

The system, he said, would profile every declarant and store the data, such that reference could be made to previous imports by the same person.
That would allow Customs to check previous valuations on similar imports, he explained.

Similarly, the Customs systems automatically selected a compliance officer of Customs who would be required to go through the declarations submitted manually and ensure that the values matched the bill of entry and manifest data before the clearance process could continue, he said.

“However, with the paperless procedures, the compliance officers will now have to check the declarations electronically, as against the previous arrangement where they were automatically selected by the system to do the manual checks, which gave them room to have face-face interactions with importers and agents.

“It is for this reason that compliance officers who are presently situated at the Tema and the Takoradi ports are being relocated to a central point at the Customs Head Office where the electronic systems have been deployed by the IT service providers to Customs,” Mr Ohene said.

The new strategy, he explained, was such that agents and importers would no longer know which compliance officer was in charge of processing their documentation, since processes were being done electronically, and only mobile alerts were sent to agents throughout the clearance processes.

Examination of imports

Mr Ohene stressed that where inspection would have to be carried out on a piece of cargo, the Joint Inspection Management Information System would help schedule the mandatory examination electronically by sending information to the various agencies, such as the FDA, the GSA, National Security, Customs, Veterinary Services, if there were meat products, among other relevant bodies, that would be required to participate in the exercise.

“The goods can only be released after the examination reveals that there are no encumbrances regarding the declaration and valuation procedures,”he added.

He expressed the hope that the project would herald a new era of efficiency in all aspects of port operations and further maximise revenue for the state.

Writer’s email: della.russel@graphic.com.gh