The Chairman of the Chamber of Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC), Gabriel Kumi, has appealed to the Ghana Revenue Authority to ensure the efficiency of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) to enable its members to encounter little or minimal challenges whilst making payments at the ports.

According to him, its members would support an efficient task-collection tool but would not tolerate hiccups such as system failures that impact their businesses.

ICUMS is a customs management and port community platform that processes documents and payments through a single window. It is a single-window project that replaced the multiplicity of vendors with a single service provider deploying an end-to-end system.

Speaking at the just-ended Downstream Petroleum Dialogue by the Chamber for Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC), Mr. Kumi said his members support the ICUMS, however, they expect trouble-free and no bottleneck in using the platform.

“We don't have any problem if that system is making task collection efficient…we support all that. But at the end of the day, we expect our members to have trouble-free, no bottlenecks in placing orders”.

“The system should not be implemented in a way that will negatively affect our operations. That's all that we are saying. And we are calling on them [Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana Ports and Habours Authority] to ensure that whatever bottlenecks, whatever the problem is, they resolved it permanently. We have tolerated these hiccups for the past one year. Going forward, we may not have the necessary patience to continue tolerating that”.

The GRA in 2020, via a statement, gave the go-ahead for all transactions in respect of import and export manifest to be processed through either ICUMS or the Ghana Customs Management System for the Port of Tema as well as all other entry points..