Ghana Link Network Services Ltd, operators of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), has flatly refuted claims by two oil marketing companies (OMCs) that they had problems lifting oil on March 6, 2026 due to challenges with the ICUMS platform.
The two OMCs, StarOil and Goil issued separate public notices, in which they both claimed that themselves and other OMCs had not been able to lift/load petroleum products for a while, due to an outage on ICUMS – the government’s platform used to establish and process taxes payable by the OMCs.
In response to this claim, Ghana Link said in a statement, “We wish to state unequivocally that these claims are false, misleading, and wholly without basis.”
The statement said the ICUMS platform has remained fully operational, including throughout the period referenced in the said statements from the two OMCs, adding that at no point has the system suffered any outage of the nature being alleged.
“On the contrary, ICUMS has continued to function as required, with stakeholders actively processing transactions and undertaking their respective functions on the platform without interruption,” it said.
NPA to blame
According to Ghana Link, internal monitoring and stakeholder engagement with the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) revealed that the operational challenge in question does not relate to ICUMS, but rather to the Enterprise Relational Database Management System (ERDMS) of the NPA.
COMAC confirms
Indeed, in a brief phone interview with the CEO of the Chamber of Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC), Dr. Riverson Oppong, he confirmed what Ghana Link said, that the challenge was actually from the NPA’s ERDMS and not from ICUMS as the Goil and StarOil claimed.
COMAC is the mother body of the OMCs.
But in their letter to the OMCs, providing them with an update on what is being done to resolve the problem, COMAC still described that problem as “The ICUMS problems”, even though the CEO has confirmed that it was an NPA problem and not an ICUMS problem.
Ghana Link says it is deeply disappointed by the publication of unsubstantiated allegations, which have the effect of misinforming the public and unfairly casting doubt on the integrity and reliability of a critical national trade facilitation platform like ICUMS.
The company therefore called on StarOil in particular, to immediately withdraw the statement and issue an unqualified public apology for putting false and misleading information into the public domain.
Ghana Link assured the public of it abiding commitment to maintaining the highest standards of operational reliability, transparency, and stakeholder support in the delivery of the ICUMS platform.
StarOil refuses to apologise
Meanwhile, in a Facebook post the CEO of StarOil, Kwame Tieku said the company will issue no apology to Ghana Link because both Goil and COMAC also blamed the problem on ICUMS, so he does not understand why Ghana Link has singled out StarOil in its statement.
He said the only condition under which StarOil will retract and apology is when NPA formerly confirms that the problem was from them and not from ICUMS.
