By Elorm Desewu
The government is likely to pay a judgment debt of over US$100 million for wrongful termination of Ghana Community Network Services Limited, (GCNet) the contract last week.
GCNet is poised to seek redress in court over what its terms wrongful termination of service agreement by the government, Economy Times has learnt.
The government has officially written to GCNet to shut down its system by the end of last month and handover all documents to UNIPASS.
GCNet is revoking article 13 point 2 of the original service agreement between GCNet and the government by seeking redress in court. This is because GCNet says it has a valid contract with the government which would end in December 2023.
Economy Times has learnt that there is the likelihood of a legal tussle in the coming months between the government and GCNet, as the latter is considering filing a lawsuit against the government to vindicate its right over the issue.
The original service agreement between the GCNet and government came to an end on April 28, 2020, according to a directive issued by the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo dated April 16th, 2020 on the termination of the agreement.
Upon the termination of GCNet’s agreement on 16thApril 2020 by the Senior Minister, the Trade Minister through the Commissioner –General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, (GRA), requested GCNet to continue its operation to 31st May 2020. This new arrangement has since been determined.
In March 2018, Ghana Link Network Services Limited, in collaboration with Customs UNI-PASS International Agency (CUPIA) of Korea Customs Services were through sole-sourcing contracted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to introduce UNI-PASS system at Ghana’s ports for ten years at a cost of US$40million.
In the contract, the government would have to cough out an amount of $93 million that would be paid to Ghana Link and its overseas partner CUPIA Korea owning UNIPASS if the company is allowed to start operating Ghana’s National Single Window platform and asked to stop in the first year in the event of any anomaly whatsoever detected.
Despite this termination clause, caution has been thrown to the wind in ensuring that before Ghana Link and UNIPASS are allowed to start work, all uncertainties would have been cleared.
UNI-PASS is a total customs administration solution, customizable to fit any environment by integrating the know-how and experience accumulated throughout the history of its development.
Based on international standards, UNI-PASS system is divided into 3 major components: Business processing (Procedural business modules and Non-procedural business modules); Support to the business processing components; and Infrastructure.
