GRA Boss, George Blankson
Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), George Blankson has called on the universal banks to come up with flexible and affordable products and services to facilitate trade in the sub-region.
He stressed that the products and services of the banks would greatly help in formalizing informal trade among the countries in the sub-region.
Mr. Blankson made the call when the Nigerian Export Promotion Council visited the GRA’s Technical Support Bureau in Accra recently.
The purpose of the visit was to enable the delegation from Nigeria gain adequate information about the implementation of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Reporting System (PAARS) by GRA with support from West Blue Consulting Limited.
The GRA boss advised the two countries to pay more attention to export of value added products, adding that the move would ensure the development of the countries.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of West Blue, Valentina Mintah, on her part, said the implementation of PAARS system is already having a dramatic impact on the time required to do business, and the other elements of the programme such as Integrated Risks Assessment, IDF and e-letter of credit will have similar strong effects.
GRA train officials
Meanwhile, Customs Division of GRA has just ended a four-week robust customs proficiency training programme for customs agents, who are engaged in import and export on behalf of declarants.
The programme was aimed at helping the agents to stay abreast with ongoing customs programmes and innovative trade facilitation initiative to enhance processes at the ports.
Director of the Tema Port, Jacob Adorkor, said that the purpose of the four-week course was to equip clearing house agents with knowledge about customs functions to enable them to deliver quality services to their clients.
The training programme centred on core customs functions, including classification, taxation, examination of goods and customs procedures.
By Cephas Larbi