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The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has claimed that an initial assessment of the implementation of the paperless system at the country’s ports, has shown a revenue collection improvement of 56 percent.

According to him, revenue at the ports increased from GHc130 million in the first week of September 2016, to GHc230 million in the same period for 2017.

Speaking at the launch of the onboarding programme for National Service Personnel into the National Communications Authority, Dr. Bawumia stated that, the recent agitation against the scheme was meant to derail it due to revenue leakage  that were blocked. 

“On September 1, we launched the paperless [system], but of course not without attempts to actually derail the process, because it’s hurting a lot of people who were making free money and people who used to take two weeks to clear a container after one day of delay were protesting.  Are you protesting the system or something else?”

“The results are amazing. We just looked at data this morning – first week of collections under the paperless system in September this year compared to last year first week of collections in September 2016, and collections have gone up by 56 percent; 56 percent from around GHc130 million to GHc230 million in one week,” he added.

Government began the implementation of the paperless clearing system on September 1, 2017, to speed up the process of clearing goods from two weeks to four hours, and ensure order at the port, whilst blocking loopholes.

But the aim to which the system was established experienced some hitches following which hundreds of angry Freight Forwarders thronged the Longroom of the Tema Port to protest over the delays in the system at the beginning.