Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance visits West Blue Consulting

Accra, May 26, GNA - Members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance have called for collaboration between West Blue Consulting and Ghana Community Network (GCNet) to help boost revenue generation for development.

The members of the Committee, who paid a working visit to the offices of West Blue Consulting in Accra, said partnership between the two institutions would enable them play their respective roles to the benefit of the country.

The working visit was to enable the Committee members to learn at first hand the operations of West Blue Consulting, who are the technical partners of the Ghana National Single Window (GNSW) project.

Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, the Chairman of the Finance Committee, said any division between the two entities could mar the country's quest to increase revenue, reduce time and cost of doing business at the country's entry points and advised they worked together for the good of the country.

'I want to see West Blue and GCNet working together, for them to be integrating their networks and operations for the benefit of the country,' he said, adding that there was the need to integrate their systems to ensure that the country truly operationalise the Single window to facilitate trade.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah said the visit had afforded them the opportunity to learn about West Blue operations and the positive impact the developments were having on the country's revenue generation.

'I think they are doing something good but I want to see the complementary effort of GCNet and West Blue working together, that is all that we are interested in. Once revenues are increasing we are fine,' he said.

He said the Committee would next meet senior officials of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Ministry of Finance to be able to make an informed decision and a definitive statement as to the way forward on the activities of the two institutions.

Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, the Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation, assured that the Committee would be objective and take a decision that is best for the country.

On her part, Ms Valentina Mintah, Chief Executive Officer of WestBlue Consulting, said the systems of all stakeholders involved in trade facilitation must be integrated to ensure the discovery of anomalies in the chain and to be able to proffer solutions to block the revenue leakages.

She said a lot of progress had been made since December 2015 when the Ghana Single Window programme came on board.

Ms Mintah said although the Customs Division of the GRA could not meet its revenue target in the first year of the GNSW project implementation in 2016, it had helped improve Customs' collections by 28.7 percent.

Besides, it had tremendously helped to reduce the cost and time of doing business in Ghana and made trade easier by eliminating all unnecessary processes, simplifying and harmonising the rest but there was still a long way to go.

Since the introduction of the GNSW's PAARS last year, traders were able to access Customs Classification and Valuation Report (CCVR) within 48 hours and in some cases within an hour instead of the more than two weeks it took traders in the past, she said.

Ms Mintah said the system had brought some efficiency at the ports, reduced time, reduced corruption, and cost of doing business.

It also led to significant gains for the country on the recent World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings in which Ghana moved an impressive 13 places up on the Trading Across Borders due to the GNSW project initiated by the government.

The Ghana National Single Window project, which was initiated by government on September 1, 2015, aims to enhance the country's trade and economic development and secure an increase in government revenue.

It is expected over the next three years to achieve an overall reduction in the administrative time and cost of trading internationally by 50 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.

The achievement would make Ghana more attractive to foreign investment as transparency, predictability; time and cost are the key factors in the location decisions of export oriented businesses.

GNA