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May 1st, 2020 was supposed to be a statutory public holiday on account of the May 1st workers Day calendar event, however, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) forced its staff to work.
The reason for vandalizing the statutory public holiday was because the GRA had on its hands the mess caused due to the false start in the implementation of the UNIPAS single window clearance system at Ghana’s Ports.
A statement from the GRA to stakeholders including freight forwarders and importers who have a huge backlog of un-cleared goods at the ports, pleaded with them to break the holiday law and work through May Day so that the backlog at the ports can be cleared.
“Due to the unfortunate circumstances of which all stakeholders are aware, and which
disabled normal operational activity in the ports, the Customs Division shall operate
normal services to the public on Friday, May 1, 2020,” the statement read.
“This is to mitigate the expenses of the business community, especially importers /
exporters in the course of the implementation of the Integrated Customs Management
System (ICUMS).
“The Ghana Revenue Authority hereby requests the cooperation of all stakeholders in the
port clearing chain especially at the ports of Terna and Takoradi to, similarly, provide
normal operational services on the said date to ensure the success of the exercise.
It must be emphasized that this sacrifice would also help to decongest the ports and ease
the flow of clearing from Monday May 4, 2020,” GRA said.
The statement was signed by Ag Deputy Commissioner, Francis Tanlongo.
The need to use the statutory public holiday arose when the roll out of the UNIPAS system by CUPIA Korea, which had been hired by Government to handle port management system in spite of the fact that GC-Net had a system already running on the basis of a contract with Government failed to live up to scratch.
The failure of UNIPAS which had been touted as far better system than what GC Net had in place led to the inability of people to clear goods, from Monday leading to a huge backlog at the Ports.
Eventually, to salvage the situation, Government had to crawl back to GC Net, which returned to business at the Ports on Wednesday. It is in a bid to clear the backlog that GRA has forced its staff to defy the public holiday law of Ghana to work through May Day