The Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, Sampson Asaaki Awingobit, says the assertion by the Vice President that revenue has increased at the Port since the implementation of the paperless clearance policy is not entirely true.
According to him, 2016 was an election year hence the decline in imports which affected the revenue base at the Port.
[contextly_sidebar id=”CXpka3MOf5sompFeZ55Lxu5Iu17XiDIO”]”It is unfortunate the Vice President is trying to compare revenue from an election free year with that of an election year,” he said.
Mr. Awingobit, who was speaking at a GIFF press conference in Tema, said the Vice President’s calculation was wrong and does not represent the fact on the ground.
“What happens is that during the electioneering season, imports decline and businesses tend to be very slow so for the Vice President to say, the one-week existence of the paperless have actually increased the revenue at the Port is highly untrue.”
Mr. Awingobit noted that, “the Vice President should have also known that due to the migration from a paper regime to a paperless one, most clearing agents prior to the implementation of the new policy entered loads of declarations which are yet to be cleared from the Port which also accounted for the rise in revenue.”
“There are several declarations that are yet to be cleared from the system even though the duties have been paid. The containers are still at the Port uncleared despite having paid duty. Those are backlogs and government must be worried” Mr Asaaki stated.
He said between September 4 and6, importers who have paid monies to clear their consignment were yet to clear them.
“I urge the Vice President to direct his focus on how to make the paperless policy a robust one devoid of all the numerous challenges than churn out figers that does not represent the realities on the ground.”
He said it too early for governent to start praising the paperless policy because the bottlenecks have not yet been addressed.
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By: Elvis Washington/citifmonline.com/Ghana