The Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications have paid a one day working visit to the Ghana Community Network (GCNet) to familiarise themselves with the operations of the company and its role in the 100% paperless regime roll out.
The 12 member delegation was led by the Chair, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, Vice Chair Hon. Charles Bintim and the Ranking Member, Hon. A.B.A Fuseini. The Committee’s priority was to deepen their knowledge and understanding of issues in order to effect necessary policy reforms needed.
The Chair and members of the Select Committee on Communications, expressed their satisfaction about GCNet’s preparedness to ensure that all bottlenecks in the clearance systems was addressed with the use of technology to enhance efficiency and improve business competitiveness of the country.
The working visit was also to engage management of GCNet to seek first-hand clarification of some reported process challenges that have bedevilled the implementation of the paperless regime. It was also to know the possible challenges GCNet faced and what steps were being taken to address the challenges.
The members of the Select Committee on Communications were taken on a guided tour of the Networking Operating Centre, Call Support Centre and other facilities at GCNet by the Executive Director, Mr. Emmanuel Darko with support from the Chief Technical Officer, Mr. Matthew Soputamit.
In a presentation to the members of the Select Committee, Product Development Manager, Mr. Carl Sackey explained the new process flow highlighting the key changes that GCNet had effected to upgrade its systems ahead of the 100% paperless regime on September 1, 2017.
He recalled that GCNet’s systems had been designed to support a paperless regime since inception from 2002 and that between 2012 and 2014, paperless processing of clearance of goods was in force but for the lack of enforcement which is key to the success of the paperless initiative since the infrastructure had already been deployed, the process would have continue.
Mr. Sackey told the Communication Select Committee that given the robust infrastructure and network deployment, GCNet had the capacity and capability to handle end to end process of the 100% paperless regime. He assured that GCNet had developed enhancements to the electronic delivery order and online container booking platforms of its systems as well as all systems configured to eliminate all forms of paper processing in the clearance chain.
Executive Director, Mr. Emmanuel Darko thanked the delegation for the visit and hoped the knowledge gathered about the operations of GCNet would positively influence policy decisions in improving the business competitiveness of the country.
The Committee pledged their support and commitment to policy reforms at the ports to impact port reforms.
The visit comes barely one month after the visit by the Trade, Industry and Tourism committee of Parliament which expressed satisfaction at the level of preparedness of GCNet for the implementation of the paperless transaction at the ports.
