Ghana Community Network Services (GC Net) has responded to claims made recently by Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) that it has not handed over historical transactional data to its Customs Division which is crucial in enabling to facilitate the clearing of imports as required by its contract with government.
Government has abrogated GC Net’s contract to do this, replacing it with a contract with Ghana Link and its South Korean partner, CUIPEA to do same in collaboration with GRA itself, using a platform originally dubbed UINIPASS, but recently renamed ICUMS. The implementation of the new platform has been controversial, but the shortcomings that irked the trade logistics community, public policy think tanks and commentators, seemingly are now gradually being resolved.
However in a new development, GRA has blamed GC Net for not handing over crucial data in usable form which has caused some of the lingering problems being experienced by users of the new platform. But in a new press release, GC Net categorically denies this.
“The attention of the Management of the Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) has been drawn to various media publications including video interviews from the operators of the UNIPASS/ICUMS system at the country’s ports accusing GCNet of not providing historical transactional data to the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
GCNet wishes to state the following:
- GCNet has handed over all data from year 2002 to May 31, 2020 to the GRA in an appropriate format, which is transformable, manageable, acceptable and transportable to any relational database management system for consumption and use in accordance with international acceptable standards, i.e. Comma Separated Values (CSV) format.
- There is a trail of irrefutable evidence of confirmed receipt by GRA of all such data from GCNet/GCMS to this effect.
- As part of the data submission to GRA, GCNet provided on two separate occasions the Column Names and Data Types.
- Therefore, it is totally false to suggest that GCNet did not hand over data to the GRA.
GCNet is proud of the service it has rendered through its smart end-to-end e-Customs Single Window system which facilitated trade, improved business competitiveness and ensured sustained improvements in revenue mobilization for the Government for national development over the years.
