Freight forwarders unimpressed by UNIPASS system

President of the Ghana Institute of freight forwarders (GIFF), has revealed that, the supposedly superior UNIPASS system has recorded only one transaction since the directive from the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Marfo to start operations at about 49 entry points.

This according to Edward Akrong, is a clear indication that Ghana Link and its overseas partner, CUPIA Korea, do not have a tried and tested system to takeover single window operations from West Blue and Ghana Community Network Services, (GCNet)

Mr Akrong, said importers, freight forwarders and other stakeholders, continue to use West Blue and GCNet system, seeking to avoid the delays associated with the UNIPASS system.

He urged the government not to rush things if the UNIPASS is not ready, stating “If they are not ready, we should not push it because it’s going to bring total chaos at the ports”.

Mr Akrong in an interview with some journalists in his Tema office, last week said: “as we speak now only one declaration has gone through the UNIPASS since the Senior Minister directive”.

He added “you can’t be proud of one declaration going through a system, taking about 5 days. So what will happen if you have about 20,000 declarants hitting your system at the same time?

“If the system is not working, we cannot hide the fact, we have to speak up. We know the system is not ready”, he said.

He said “We do not have anything against government’s policies and programs, but if a decision will take a hit on the Ghanaian trader and importer then we have to speak up.

Mr Akrong, reiterated that Ghana Link, has not done end to end testing of its UNIPASS system using all the customs regimes, adding “They have to run a pilot, and a stress test has to be done to be sure the system is robust enough to carry all the pressures that will be put on it. All of these have not been done, so how will the system work”.

The General Manager in charge of Technical Administration of GCNet, Carl Sackey, has also questioned the government’s rationale in the deployment of the UNIPASS single window system arguing that “whatever problem that the government intends to solve with the introduction of the UNIPASS system was it's own (government’s) creation.

Kwaku Kwarteng, Deputy Minister of Finance, recently claimed that there were trials in Takoradi and Tema, before the government rolled out UNIPASS contrast.

Mr Sackey, has strongly refuted the claims, stating the Minister ‘lied’.

“I think you need to go on the ground to go and see, the Minister was actually not telling the truth. Because to date, the system being used are systems provided by current service providers, GCNET and West Blue,” he said in an interview recently on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’.

Many customs officials and other stakeholders at the port, also expressed concerns about the opening up of the country’s points of entry to frequent visits by persons from South Korea, which has one of the highest numbers of confirmed cases in Asia to train officials of customs and stakeholders on how to use their supposedly superior system.

They have, therefore called on President Akufo-Addo, to as a matter of urgency stop UNIPASS’s training programmes and other activities at the ports that could lead to spread of the virus.