The Wildlife Division (WD) of the Forestry Commission in collaboration with the ICT Directorate has engaged stakeholders and exporters in wildlife trade on a newly developed software application for Convention on International Trade in endangered species (CITES) implementation.

The engagement was to inform them about the software app and elicit inputs which would be incorporated to fine-tune the software application process.

The CITES application software was developed for faster, convenient and effective preparation of national and international wildlife permits.

Similarly, it is to reduce cost of permit preparation and turnaround time, reduce fraud, meet international standards and bring efficiency and effectiveness into the wildlife trade application process.

The Director of Ecotourism and Stakeholder – WD, Dr. Richard Gyimah, welcomed and  thanked the stakeholders for honouring the invitation and explained that the duty of the Division is to engage and serve them by making business transaction simpler for them.

He noted that the app is meant to make wildlife trade application process efficient in conformity to the CITES regulations and therefore, stakeholders were called to freely give their inputs to make the process efficient for all concerned parties.

The ICT team took participants through a demonstration of the software application process and their inputs were taken for implementation.

The Executive Director of the Wildlife Division, Mr Bernard Asamoah Boateng; Director of ICT, Dr. Joseph Adu Mintah; and other Managers of the Divisiono were present at the meeting.