The new system, which is widely known as UNIPASS, will replace the roles carried out by GCNet and West Blue whose contracts are yet to expire.

But the Customs authorities maintain that the state does not risk any charge for the decision.

“Unless it is an express provision in the contract then you could have a legal argument to make, where you try as much as possible to be fair to all parties. But you do not fetter my ability to disengage something that will be inimical to my interest. So every contract makes provisions for all these. So when the time comes and you have any fears, then those fears are allayed by structural and imperative arrangements that have been put in place,” the Commissioner of Customs, Colonel Kwadwo Damoah (Rtd) emphasized at a media sensitization workshop.

Among the numerous justifications for the new single window platform is its ability to improve the turnaround time for clearing goods at the ports.

Also, proponents say the new system should put Ghana’s trade facilitation business at par with others on the international scale.

This means that the work currently being carried out by GCNet and West Blue will be grounded.

This has raised some concerns over possible debts to be slapped on the government by the affected companies for possible breach of contract.

Colonel Damoah further intimated that the customs division of the GRA is developing a strategy to enable its personnel assume responsibility and take over all management systems in the medium term.

“We are going to roll out our second strategic plan, and there is a definite provision for IT because I am unable to say with certainty that this is what is going to happen. Any decision will be communicated,” he said.

A Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng, in an earlier interview with Citi Business News disclosed that the new system, to be given a different name altogether, will roll out by middle of this month.

This however comes amidst opposition by some groups such as the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders and IMANI Ghana.

For them, the move if allowed to sail through, will affect Ghana’s competitiveness in trade facilitation.