Ghana’s most contentious trade reform in years has taken a new turn, with the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG) formally backing the Ghana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) Publican Artificial Intelligence (AI) customs valuation system, only for rival industry bodies to immediately challenge the group’s authority to speak on behalf of the sector.
The Publican AI system became mandatory for all import clearances on March 12, 2026, and operates as a complement to the existing Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), benchmarking declared import values against global trade data to detect under-invoicing and plug revenue gaps.
In a statement signed by Executive Secretary Samson Asaki Awingobit, the IEAG said concerns it raised in 2025 over stakeholder consultation, data security, transparency and system integration had since been resolved through extensive engagements with the Ministry of Finance and the GRA. The association described those prior reservations as outdated and said it now stands fully behind the reform.
The endorsement, however, drew an immediate rebuke from the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF). First Vice President Nana Asiamah Peprah dismissed the IEAG as unrecognised, asserting that the association lacks institutional standing and is not formally acknowledged by state bodies or the government. He urged the public to scrutinise the credentials of organisations engaging the government on the issue, noting that credible associations hold structured elections and command demonstrated industry influence.
The GIFF is part of a wider coalition opposing Publican AI that includes the Ghana Union of Traders Associations (GUTA), the Customs Brokers Association of Ghana (CUBAG) and the Freight Forwarders Association of Ghana (FFAG). These groups have staged industrial action and, in some cases, pursued legal challenges demanding disclosure of the contract between the GRA and Publican’s private technology partner.
The legal dimension remains unresolved. Critics argue that by prohibiting customs officers from finalising valuations below AI-generated outputs, the system operates as a de facto minimum valuation regime, a design that sits in direct tension with the World Trade Organization’s Customs Valuation Agreement, which requires transaction value to serve as the primary basis for customs taxation.
The GRA has defended the system on both legal and operational grounds. Commissioner-General Anthony Kwasi Sarpong said the AI compresses a process that previously took customs officers up to two hours into roughly five minutes, while enabling more accurate verification of declared values by tracing the origin and purchase price of goods.
An internal comparison of customs revenue for the three weeks before and after Publican’s introduction showed average weekly revenue rising from GH¢2.4 billion to GH¢3.6 billion, an increase of GH¢1.2 billion, according to Sarpong.
Despite those figures, analysts warn that the system’s longer-term success depends on resolving the appeals bottleneck. Under the current framework, a centralised secretariat in Accra handles all disputes, and local customs officers are barred from entertaining direct appeals against AI-generated decisions a structure that critics say creates significant delays for traders operating at entry points outside the capital.
