The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has cautioned against the potential reintroduction of the Cargo Tracking Network (CTN) at the ports, set to take effect on November 1, 2023.
The CTN is a system designed to furnish the Ghana Customs Division and other relevant stakeholders with real-time shipment data, facilitating efficient oversight of cargo review processes and import traffic management into Ghana.
Dr. Joseph Obeng, the President of GUTA, responded to this development in an interview with GhanaWeb Business, expressing strong opposition from the business community, particularly at a time when many companies are still grappling with the lingering effects of the ongoing economic downturn.
“This CTN was first introduced in 2018 and as a result of severe agitation of the policy within the business community, it was taken off and is now being smuggled back at a time when most businesses are struggling under the effects of the economic hardship and other cost of doing business,” the GUTA president told GhanaWeb Business via phone on October 31, 2023
“We [GUTA] therefore entreat the business community to ignore this directive which takes effect from November 1, 2023, until the right and relevant stakeholder engagement has been held with the business community over the CTN’s reintroduction,” Dr Obeng added.
The GUTA president went on to say that the trading community had been led to believe that the current ICUMS would address the CTN’s bottlenecks, so the CTN would not be approved.
“We know ICUMS has been efficient since its implementation at the ports and so a reintroduction of the CTN would be counterproductive to the business community. The CTN impedes the ease, time and cost of doing business as we have always argued over in the past. Businesses are currently experiencing serious challenges we are not going to accept a reintroduction of this counterproductive CTN policy,” the GUTA president emphasised.
In the meantime, the trading community swiftly opposed the CTN when it was first implemented at the ports in 2018 because they thought it would make doing business more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.
