THE GHANA Revenue Authority (GRA) says total revenues generated by the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) for the authority since June this year has reached a record high of some GH¢10.5 billion as at December 12, 2020.
This consists of some GH¢7.6 billion for the Customs Division of the GRA from import duties generated from imports and export of goods into and out of Ghana, with the rest being revenues generated by DTRD division of the GRA raising some GH¢2.7 billion through the ICUMS and Non-GRA revenues, which is a little over GH¢140 million.
The GRA in June 2020, through a press conference, addressed by the Commissioner General, claimed that prior to the switch over to the new platform, the National Single Window System formerly operated by GCNet in partnership with West Blue Consulting, was generating a monthly average amount of GH¢940 million.
The new data then justifies government’s decision to have the new platform deployed by South Korea’s CUPIA in collaboration with its local partner, Ghana Link Network Services, despite the resistance from stakeholders at the time they were rolling out and the technical challenges that were faced by the team when the ICUMS went live nationwide, which the clearing and forwarding community expressed dissatisfaction.
Government officials and the GRA have been enthused over the revenue performance of the ICUMS, pointing out that it has improved despite the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trade volumes. This, they argued, suggested even better revenue improvement when the pandemic eventually subsides.
Apart from June 2020, when revenue generated by the ICUMS dropped by almost four per cent below what was generated at the same period in 2019 due to the challenges which hit the deployment at Tema, the current data had seen an upward trend.
Comparing year on year, this shows that in July 2020 while the ICUMS generated over GH¢1.1billion, the old vendors generated duty payments of GH¢949 million. Therefore, in this month the increase in percentage terms was hovering around 23%.
In August 2020, the percentage increase was around 32%, because the ICUMS generated duty payment of some GH¢1.2 billion while the old vendors (GCNet and West Blue) raised GH¢952 million in August 2019. In September 2020 while the ICUMS generated above GH¢1.2 billion representing some 35% increase from what the old vendors generated (GH¢920 million) in the same period in 2019.
With this data, November 2019 was the best performance of the old vendors where they raised a little over GH¢1 billion but again they were out-performed by the ICUMS which had Ghana Link Network Services as its technical partners generating some GH¢1.2 billion representing an increase of 26% in percentage terms.
In October 2020, the ICUMS raised 35% (GH¢1.3 billion) in revenues higher than what the GCNet and West Blue (GH¢980 million) generated for the government in the same period last year.
Clearance Time
There have been significant improvements with the clearance time of goods at the ports and land entering points, while the average number of days for one to clear goods at the ports is four days. Average clearance time is calculated from when a declaration is submitted to the ICUMS system till the time that the cargo is released from customs.
Success of ICUMS
Just last week, the Assistant Commissioner of Customs in charge of the Accra Sector Command, who is also the ICUMS Implementation Committee Chairman, Emmanuel Ohene, also in his recent interviews with the media, hailed the success of the ICUMS, which he said was significantly transforming trade facilitation.
The success of the system, according to him, included elimination of the multiple routes prior to payment of duties, seamless processes, increasing revenue, speedy processing of pre-manifest declaration and undertaking classification and valuation in the same system, among others.
ICUMS 2nd Phase For 2021 First Quarter
Mr. Ohene said after a successful implementation of the phase one of the ICUMS, the public should expect the second phase, the trading, to be rolled out by the first quarter of 2021.
Change of Old Vendors
The decision to discontinue with the services of GCNet and other service providers by government was informed by their need to replace the multiplicity of vendors with a single service provider deploying an end-to-end system.
The ICUMS is an e-Customs system which provides swift customs clearance, increases government revenue, connects various government and private entities to facilitate cross border trade and ultimately contributes to the economic development.
The ICUMS was first deployed at the various frontiers in March 2020 following a successful pilot at Aflao and Elubo a month earlier in February. In April, Takoradi, having undergone simulations and stress tests, took off.
A business desk report