The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) says the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) has significantly transformed the country’s trade facilitation landscape and revenue mobilisation.
The GRA said the system had succeeded in eliminating the multiple routes before payment of duties, ensuring seamless processes, increasing revenue, enabling speedy processing of pre-manifest declaration, and undertaking classification and valuation in the same system, among other things.
The success of ICUMS has been attributed to the decentralisation of clearance processes from the Customs Technical Services Bureau.
Due to this, GRA exceeded its revenue target in August and November 2020 from the ports despite the negative impact of the coronavirus on the global shipping business.
Eliminate delays
Emmanuel Ohene, assistant commissioner of customs in charge of the Accra Sector Command, said GHC1.2 billion has been realised monthly since the introduction of ICUMS.
“Tema collection in this month of November has exceeded its target. In August, ICUMS was responsible for the revenue target being exceeded,” he added.
Ohene, who is also the chairman of the ICUMS implementation team, declared that the initial delays that users of the system faced when processing bills of entry, for example, are now a thing of the past.
He said ICUMS simplified the previous Pre-Arrival Assessment Reporting System (PAARS) and ensured that classification and valuation were done through the ICUMS with a customs supervisor, who quickly verified documents and generated a tax bill.
According to him, this has eliminated the multiple routes one had to pursue before paying duties, a hallmark of the old system.
Ohene said it takes about two hours to process a pre-manifest declaration once an importer, through his or her agent, submits documents in ICUMS that are not subject to any queries.
“One of the very attractive modules which are being used by about 70% of the freight forwarders is the pre-manifest declaration; it is one of the pillars of trade facilitation agreement from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It allows you to process paperwork and make payment prior to the arrival of the vessel,” he said.
Manifest matching
Ohene said outstations across the various frontiers of Ghana could manage some of the customs regimes, including import, export, re-export and transit.
“In a place like Elubo, where we had a lot of complaints, the decentralisation has taken place. The same as Aflao,” he said.
Ohene said the initial problem of manifest matching that bedevilled the system is now non-existent.
ICUMS has been integrated successfully with the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) nationwide, he added, despite the difficulties associated with acquiring historical data.
Tracking devices
He said ICUMS provided more than 7,000 tracking devices for monitoring transit cargo, leading to a stop on attachment of temporary escorts to transit cargoes.
Ohene said the second phase of ICUMS was expected to be effected by the first quarter of 2021.
Before ICUMS, 141 customs officers across the country who hitherto were operating manually were engaged to work on the ICUMS automated systems, and by the end of the first quarter of 2021, all customs offices will be brought on board.
The assistant commissioner said ICUMS had its checks and balances on supervising officers at the various points of operation in the system, ensuring that no undue delays come up as a result of officers’ bad behaviour.
“There’s a performance management system in the ICUMS which monitors how long one keeps a declaration,” Ohene said.
Though he admitted some complaints of the trading public regarding the new system are justified, Ohene insisted that ICUMS has brought significant progress with regard to trade facilitation in Ghana.
He encouraged users of the system to remain hopeful, as the ICUMS team plans to introduce the second phase of the system soon, during which challenges to the system will be fixed and many innovations added.
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