Customs to intensify data gathering

The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has joined its counterparts around the world to mark the 2017 International Customs Day, with a call to improve data gathering at the country’s borders.

The decision, which forms part of the broader efforts of the GRA at blocking revenue leakages, is also targeted at improving tax collection for development.

The celebrations, which was under the theme: ‘Data Analysis for Effective Border Management’ and held in Accra, brought together various stakeholders from government agencies, and institutions as well as Customs officials from other regions.

The Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Mr. George Blankson explained that reliable data will substantially enhance revenue generation.

“We plan to make presentations to explain how data management systems have facilitated our revenue collection process in the classification and evaluation goods and also employment of risk management tools to enhance compliance as well as detection of customs fraud,” he said.

He said that the authority is poised to improve the country revenue collection through the process of quickly retrieving data for national assignment.

“Data analysis has the goal of discovering useful information, suggesting conclusion and supporting decision making, for this reason the authority strives to acquire information management systems that will make retrieving and analyzing of data very easy.

The recent development of the post clearance audit unit in the customs division has for instance resulted in the utilization of large pool of data for the conduct of follow up audit and controls that have significantly improved tax compliance and revenue mobilization,” he added.

Dr. Edward Larbi-Siaw, Special Advisor, Tax Policy at the Ministry of Finance explained that with globalisation, the trade and transport community continues to seek simplification of data requirements for international trade transactions on account of legal and regulatory regimes at the borders. 

He said pursuant to those developments, there was consensus among member countries of the World Customs Organisation (WCO) that global harmonisation and simplification of systems and procedures could be achieved through learning from other countries.

“It is becoming increasingly necessary for customs administrations worldwide to share and exchange data and information,” Dr. Larbi-Siaw added.  

Secretary General of the WCO, Mr. Kunio Mikuriya, in a statement said customs administrations had shown a keen interest in leveraging the potential of information technology, implementing and using digital technologies to achieve their objectives and responding to the expectations of traders, transport and logistic operators, as well as governments.

“While developments in Information Communication Technology and its wider use have made the collection of data and access to open data easier, the real challenge is about making sense of a vast amount of information through proper processing and analysis. 

“This will help customs officers to drive priority-setting, decision-making, performance measurement, integrity and compliance strategy, budget planning and forecasting, and operations,” he said.