Madam
Valentina Mintah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of West Blue Consulting,
a world class business and IT-consulting and technology firm has been awarded
the “Chief Executive Officer of the Year 2016-Business and IT Consulting
Services” Award at the prestigious Ghana Entrepreneur Awards 2016 held in
Accra.
The
Award presented to her by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of
the Republic Turkey to Ghana, H.E Nesrin Bayazit seeks to recognize Madam
Mintah’s outstanding achievement, vision, innovation and growth in the trade
facilitation and customs modernization in Ghana. She received a certificate and
a coveted plaque.
The
seventh Ghana Entrepreneur & Corporate Executive Awards 2017 which was
organized by the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana (EFG) in association with
the OmniBank seeks to reward excellence among the most committed and dedicated
entrepreneurs and corporate executives in Ghana.
The
award is in collaboration with the Ministries of Trade and Industry and
Finance, according to the organizers.
Commenting
on her award, Madam Mintah said: “I am very honoured and thankful to God;
family and friends; my amazing staff, clients and government for creating the
enabling environment for private businesses to thrive”.
“I
dedicate the award to all who dare to dream”, she stated.
In
all, about 30 other entrepreneurs and business executives were awarded in
various categories including entrepreneur of the year, mining, insurance and
banking and finance.
West
Blue Consulting which Madam Mintah headed is the technical partner of the Ghana
National Single Window (GNSW) project which has been contracted by the
Government of Ghana to run the five year project.
Initially,
she led her team to successfully develop and implement the Pre-Arrival
Assessment Reporting System (PAARS) last year.
The
PAARS, according to the senior officials is a modernized system that has been
developed by the Customs Division of GRA as part of the implementation of the
GNSW project to enhance revenue mobilization, improve border security and
customs clearance, overcome duplication across regulatory agencies and promote
trade facilitation.
Since
the introduction of the GNSW’s PAARS last year, traders are able to access
Customs Classification and Valuation Report (CCVR) within 48 hours.
In
some cases, within an hour that is substantial improvement from the previous
situation whereby it used to take traders more than a week or two weeks just to
get their CCVR.
The
system has brought some efficiency at the ports, reduced time, reduced
corruption, and cost of doing business.
Another
significant achievement Madam Mintah chalked was the country’s historic
performance on the recent World Bank’s Ease of Doing rankings.
Ghana
had moved an impressive 13 places up on the Trading Across Borders in the
latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report. The report accredited the
performance to the GNSW project initiated by the government.
The
Doing Business 2017 report, titled ‘’Equal Opportunity for All’, showed that
Ghana was placed at position 108 out of 190 countries surveyed in the Overall
Ranking of Ease of Doing Business – an improvement from 111 in the previous
report.
In
the sub-Saharan Africa sub-region, Ghana ranked in the Top 10, coming 9th, out
of the 47 countries ranked in the region. This is evidence that the Government
of Ghana is pursuing active reforms to ensure the Ease of Doing Business in
Ghana.
The
Customs Division of GRA took over the processing of the CCRV from the
destination companies in September 2015.
The
CCRV replaced the destination inspection report also known as the Final
Classification and Valuation Report (FCVR). In spite of the successes chalked
so far through the implementation of the PAARS, West Blue is still working hard
to facilitate trade and maximize revenue for the government.
Based
on the experience of the Single Window implementations in other countries, West
Blue estimated that the GNSW project would reduce the cost and time of
international trade (import, export and transit) in Ghana by 50 per cent and 25
per cent respectively over the next five years.
Instructively,
the GNSW project was initiated on 1st September 2015 by the Government of
Ghana to enhance the country’s trade and economic development and secure and
increase government revenue. It was officially launched in 1st December,
2015.
Indeed,
the Single Window concept was developed by the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2005 as an effort to simplify, harmonies and
standardize international trade procedures and associated information flows
between trade and government and within government itself.
UNECE,
through its UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
(UN/CEFACT), defined Single Window as “a facility that allows parties involved
in trade and transport to lodge standardized information and documents with a
single entry point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related
regulatory requirements. If information is electronic, then individual data
elements should only be submitted once”.
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