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Business News of Tuesday, 17 March 2020

Source: peacefmonline.com

UNIPASS contract: Kwaku Kwarteng ‘lied’ - GM GCNet

Carl Sackey, General Manager, GCNet play videoCarl Sackey, General Manager, GCNet

The General Manager in charge of Technical Administration of Ghana Community Network Services, (GCNet), Carl Sackey, has questioned the government’s rationale in the deployment of the UNIPASS single window system.

He argued that "whatever problem that the government intends to solve with the introduction of the UNIPASS system was its own (government’s) creation, rather than the ineffectiveness" of the current players, GCNet, Customs World/West Blue or the Cargo Note Tracking system.

His comment comes after the Deputy Minister for Finance in charge of revenue, Kwaku Kwarteng said the rollout of UNIPASS, government’s new electronic customs clearing system at the country’s ports, could not start on Monday because of delayed administrative instructions to customs officers.

Kwaku Kwarteng claims that there were trials in Takoradi and Tema before the government rolled out UNIPASS contrast.

But Carl Sackey in an interview on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’ strongly refuted the claims after insisting 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 [GC Net],” he said.

Mr. Sackey further said that UNIPASS’s functionalities are not any different from what its systems are built to do, although the government has limited the functionality usage of the GCNet system.

“GCNet’s contract says it supposed to have the end to end which we actually have, but the government is not using it. And then people ask the question, what is the difference between what you are bringing in and what is on the ground? Technically, there is no difference,” he added.

Watch him in the video below