Ghana’s freight forwarding and trading community has escalated its opposition to the Publican Artificial Intelligence (AI) customs valuation system, with a district chapter of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) issuing a formal ultimatum to the Ministry of Finance demanding action by April 7, 2026, even as government officials defend the system and cite strong early revenue results.
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) confirmed that Publican went live at the Tema Port on March 11, 2026, and in the weeks since, has flagged 24.7 percent of all import declarations as being below internationally accepted values, while clearing 75.3 percent without dispute. Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Nyarko Ampem, who briefed stakeholders on the rollout, said the system was generating millions in additional revenue daily and described it as a critical tool for sealing long-standing gaps in customs valuation and classification.
The GRA deployed Publican as a complementary tool to the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), which remains the primary clearance platform at all ports and entry points. The AI system, developed by a Cyprus-based firm and approved by Parliament, aggregates real-time global trade data to help customs officers detect undervaluation and misclassification within minutes, replacing a manual process that previously took up to two hours per assessment. GRA Commissioner-General Anthony Kwasi Sarpong had said at an earlier stakeholder briefing that pilot tests showed the system could lift customs revenue by 40 to 45 percent.
But the industry response has grown sharper. A national coalition led by GIFF, including the Ghana Union of Traders Associations (GUTA), the Customs Brokers Association of Ghana (CUBAG), the Freight Forwarders Association of Ghana (FFAG), the Association of Customs House Agents Ghana (ACHAG), and the Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG), held a press conference in Tema on March 30 demanding immediate review or suspension of the directive governing the system.
GIFF General Secretary Paul Kobina Mensah said the system’s directive appeared to impose AI-generated values as minimum thresholds, a practice he said directly contradicts Sections 67 and 68 of the Customs Act, 2015 (Act 891), which establish transaction value as the primary valuation method and require a sequential approach for any alternatives. “This has resulted in excessive and unsustainable duty assessments on traders,” he said.
The Aflao District chapter of GIFF separately issued a written ultimatum to the Finance Ministry warning of legal action if no response is received by Tuesday April 7. The district chapter highlighted an additional concern around the centralisation of the Customs Technical Services Bureau (CTSB) valuation functions in Accra, which it said has created significant delays for traders operating in border communities in the Ketu South and Ketu North Municipalities.
The coalition’s technical objections extend to the system’s ability to handle non-standard goods. Freight forwarders say Publican cannot fairly value used and second-hand goods, such as salvaged vehicle engines and spare parts sourced from scrap markets, because these items lack uniform pricing structures and require contextual human judgement to assess level of usage and condition before a value is assigned.
The coalition also warned that Publican’s global benchmark data could be distorted by illicit financial flows and money laundering, creating a risk that inflated reference prices embedded in the system’s training data could translate into systematically inflated valuations for Ghanaian importers.
Government officials pushed back on claims of delay, with Nyarko Ampem and Sarpong both maintaining that Publican generates results in real time and that clearance delays arise from incorrect Harmonised System (HS) codes submitted by importers, not from the AI system itself. The GRA also introduced a committee-based dispute resolution process in which valuation challenges are reviewed by a sitting panel twice weekly rather than decided by individual officers, a change officials say reduces the risk of collusion.
All parties said they support stronger enforcement and revenue mobilisation. The central dispute is whether Publican’s current directive aligns with Ghana’s legal customs framework and international valuation standards, and whether adequate safeguards exist for traders whose goods fall outside the categories the system can accurately assess.
