The Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission (PCSRC), a Ghanaian regulatory agency under the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MOCD), is taking steps to register all ecommerce platforms and provide them with a safe online profile.

The activity will be free of charge and will assist the Commission in combating e-commerce fraud in the country.

According to a statement signed by Hamdaratu Zakaria, Executive Secretary of the PCSRC, a free-to-use electronic portal has already been developed to allow members of the public to obtain directory information on all registered e-commerce traders and logistics companies (including courier services) in good standing with the PCSRC before doing business with them.

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Here Is What You Need To Know

• The system, according to the government, will be integrated with telecom and corporate registers to close existing gaps.

• Furthermore, the statement stated that a complaint and company rating system would be centralized so that fraudulent individuals and sham enterprises would no longer be able to hide behind the current anonymity given by digital technology in order to defraud unwary members of the public.

“They will be blacklisted. This is absolutely necessary to sanitise this rapidly growing sector and provide security for the conduct of genuine online business. All of these efforts are in line with the Government of Ghana’s Digitalisation Agenda,” it said.

• It claimed that the ongoing trade liberalisation regimes under the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had complicated domestic legislation because enterprises could now trade across national borders via the internet.

• According to the statement, fraudulent operatives used this to avoid local law enforcement agencies by operating from neighboring countries.

• According to the statement, the PCSRC has also joined the AfCFTA Hub and Caravan projects, as well as successfully integrated its regulatory platform with the continental system.

• According to the statement, the Commission would continue to collaborate with other agencies in Ghana and beyond the region to tighten the noose around digital fraudsters regardless of where they operate.

• It stated that the new regime for regulating digital trading and logistics firms would be implemented in May 2022.

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Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh