The Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) has been adjudged the Trade Facilitation Organisation of the Year for the third consecutive time at the Ghana Shippers Awards recently held in Accra.
The company was also recognised as Company of the Year.

GCNet emerged as the winner for the two awards because of its pioneering and leadership role in the trade facilitation industry.

GCNet at the centre of Ghana’s digitization journey has leveraged technology to transform the economy, through the deployment of innovative systems that facilitate trade, reduce the associated cost of trade, improve business competitiveness and also enhance revenue mobilization.

The Ghana Shippers Awards recognises excellence, hard work and encouraged strict adherence to compliance and transparency in the transport and shipping industry.

In all, there were 52 award categories in the 2019 Ghana Shippers Awards, with 15 penned for special recognition to industry actors, who have excelled in their contribution to reshaping the ecosystem for growth

For the past 17 years, GCNet had provided the infrastructure that networks all parties to a single window platform, ensuring efficiency, transparency and security in the trade facilitation and revenue mobilization ecosystem.

Commenting on the award, General Manager of GCNet, Mr. Alwin Hoegerle, noted ‘the company has continued to leverage on technology to reshape the trade facilitation and revenue mobilization space.

Today, we provide an end- to- end smart e-solution for clearance at the ports. We are in a unique position with broad overview of business registration, domestic taxation and international customs duties as a result of our systems deployed”.

To ensure Transparency & Revenue Assurance to Custom operations, GCNet deployed the Trade Facilitation Platform (TFP), a comprehensive web-based suite to further enhance the Single Window offering.

The TFP ensures maximum synergy between Customs, Logistics Partners and Other Government Agencies while enhancing user experience and improving the ease of doing business”, he observed

In addition, GCNet has deployed the third version of the Ghana Customs Management Systems (GCMS) and the advanced version of the Manifest document to facilitate fast clearance of goods from the ports.

It has also facilitated the smooth implementation of the First Port Duty Rule policy directive and integrated the Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS) with the National Petroleum Authority’s (NPA) Petroleum Orders and related payment requirements to petroleum tax revenue collection.

According to Mr Alwin Hoegerle, these major milestones in the past year had added value to the trade facilitation ecosystem and impacted positively in Ghana’s position in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Transport, Nii Kwartei Titus-Glover, pledged the Ministry’s commitment to work with all stakeholders to create a conducive regime through the provision of the necessary infrastructure and policy support that engenders a competitive business environment for accelerated development.

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Shippers Authority, Ms Benonita Bismarck noted that the continued educational engagements with stakeholders had contributed to reduction of demurrage costs and improved turn-around time.

She assured that the Authority would work to ensure the provision of robust, enduring infrastructure and systems that enhance the maritime regime

The deployment of systems with availability at 99.5% comparable to international standards has resulted in almost fifty thousand percentage growth in Declaration Processing with close to sixty per cent of all goods cleared within 48 hours, at the ports since the introduction.

Also, with the introduction of e-scheduling, e- joint inspection and e-examination, it has triggered an increase in transparency of examination, leading to about 17.5% reduction in demurrage cost to importers.

To date, GCNet has invested more than $80m in system and infrastructure upgrades to ensure data integrity, business continuity and security in the trade facilitation and revenue mobilization ecosystem, with significant increase in the customs tax revenue mobilization realised from GHS13.1bn in 2016 to GHS15.3bn (exclusive of Petroleum Tax) in 2017 and GHS 16.3bn collected in 2018.

GCNet is a Public-Private Partnership that was incorporated on November 13, 2000. Its shareholders are the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA), Ecobank Ghana Limited (EBG), Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) and Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) of Switzerland.