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Barely a year into the implementation of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), some stakeholders within the port trade chain say import and export procedures through the country’s sea and land borders have seen a significant improvement in clearance time.
They said the pre-manifest declaration (PDM) procedures imbedded in the ICUMS had provided room for importers and agents to clear cargo within a day, except in situations where they had unsatisfactory issues with the cargo examination processes.

The stakeholders, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, included terminal operators, importers and freight forwarders.

Deployment

Deployed on June 1, 2020, the ICUMS currently covers some 135 Customs operational points across the country including the Elubo and Aflao borders, the Tema and Takoradi ports, as well as the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

The pre-clearance allows importers to make necessary applications to ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) for approval of permits on cargoes that require clearance.


It also grants an importer or agent access to create a Bill of Entry (BOE) and other such processes to enable Customs to undertake classification and valuation to determine the duties and taxes to be paid.

Fulfilment

In addition, the stakeholders said the process had fulfilled Section 50 of Customs Act 2015, (ACT 891) which ensured that importers and agents were able to make declarations to Customs and other regulatory agencies, processed them, had results and made payments for the imports way ahead of a ship’s arrival.

While some of the stakeholders pointed out that the development had made it possible to escape payment of interest charge, demurrage and port rents, thereby providing real-time trade flow, others maintained that trade cost still remained high since there were still some elements of delay charges importers and traders often had to pay.

Improvements/challenges

The Chairmen of the Takoradi and Elubo Chapters of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), Mr Mathew Dzeke and Mr William Kojo Johnson indicated that while there were challenges that occasioned the initial roll out of the ICUMS, enhanced features introduced along the way had streamlined a lot of paperwork processes within the last year.

“The past year has seen significant improvement in processes which has made export compliance and other suspense regimes such as warehousing and Free Zones becoming seamless,” Mr Johnson told the Daily Graphic team in Takoradi.

Mr Dzeke, on the other hand, noted that while the clearance processes looked simplified, issues of internet connectivity created some delays for goods in transit through the border.

Customs officials, he said, often had challenges closing transactions within the ICUMS using the cargo declaration numbers and that often created delays for their clients. 

“In most cases, the officers may have to undertake an internal messaging (IMS) mechanism within the system to temporarily close transactions within the system so they could go back to work on the transactions when there is internet accessibility,” Mr Dzeke stated.

A more worrying phenomenon, the stakeholders observed, was the increasing skyrocket cost that had come to be associated with transit trade by way of shipping charges, a situation, they wished the Ghana Shippers Authority could intervene.

Takoradi Port

The stakeholders in Takoradi also indicated that although there had been an improvement by way of service delivery, they had issues with the transfer of vehicles from the Inland Container Depot (ICD), Tacotel to the Safe Bond Car Terminal for clearance as a result of the ICUMS listing the Tacotel terminal as the default freight station.

That notwithstanding, Mr Johnson stressed that nearly 80 per cent of port processes within the ICUMS were devoid of the use of paper documentations.

“Except for vehicles that must have a Customs utilised stamps which is required for vehicle registration by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), we will say our processes here in Takoradi are fully paperless,” Mr Johnson said.

Also sharing his views, the Terminal Manager at Tacotel, Mr Richmond Appiah, said while the system was smooth-running devoid of any major challenges, they would only wish that Customs improved on the tallying and evacuation of container processes in the ICUMS.