The Minister for monitoring and evaluation Dr. Anthony Osei Akoto has for the de-politicisation of discussions on the seeming impasse between IT firms WestBlue Consulting and the Ghana Community Network Services Limited, GCNet.
There is uneasy calm and a turf war between the two entities especially since the inception of WestBlue, who are technical partners of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority in the implementation of the National Single Window programme.
The Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders during the recently held port efficiency conference cited the seeming lack of cooperation between the two entities as having a negative impact on doing business in the ports.
Speaking to Starr Business on the sidelines of a visit by the Finance Committee of parliament to the offices of WestBlue consulting, Dr. Akoto Osei said be he believes politicising the matter will spell doom for the country.
According to him, he has had the benefit of hindsight with the country’s experience of the Bank Switch issue which cost the nation some 900 million dollars, adding that it was imperative that people are measured in their pronouncements when they are discussing issues relating to the two entities.
“I am particular about this issue because of my experience with the bank switch issue and it happened when I was minister of state for finance. It cost this country 900 million dollars. If anything goes wrong with regards to these companies, we will be paying up to 1 billion dollars, so let us tread cautiously’’ he noted.
Dr. Osei however said it was important to have dispassionate discussions if people felt there was some amount of duplication in the roles of the two entities in order to find ways resolve them.
‘’If there is a duplication, let’s discuss it dispassionately and make sure that whatever we do, it will improve on our current status. All of them are helping Ghana but it is not optimum. We have to ensure they optimise and move to the next step, make sure the system is well integrated,’’ he further stated.
