GPHA inaugurates committee on port funding
The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has rolled out a strategy to look for alternative and more sustainable ways of financing port infrastructure in the country.
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According to officials, the initiative is to end the country’s over-dependence on foreign investments crafted under public-private partnership (PPP).
“The phenomenon is the same across the length and breadth of West and Central Africa and it is leading to the gradual shift of control of the industry from the hands of Ghanaians and Africans into the hands of foreign interests,” the acting Director-General of the GPHA, Mr Paul Asare Ansah, said.
Consultative meeting
Mr Ansah made the remarks at a consultative meeting with stakeholders of GPHA where a nine-member committee to develop modalities for funding port infrastructural development was also inaugurated.
Participants in the meeting discussed issues such as ways to regulate, control and collaborate in making services in the sector better.
The director-general maintained that minimising foreign control required the financial muscle to self-finance the logistics and infrastructural projects at the ports.
Committee
The Committee, which is chaired by the acting General Manager of GPHA in charge of Audit, Mr Roderick Ocloo, has Messrs Ignatius Afrifa of Scanship, Erasmus Mensah of the GPHA, Kwaku Okyere Darko of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), and Stephen Acheampong of Advance Stevedooring as members.
The rest are Messers Samuel Ntow Kumi of GPHA, Nick Danso Adjei of Nick Scan, Enoch Adu-Arthur and Sampson Awingobit Asaki of the Importers and Exporters Association.
With freight cargo expected to increase in the next five years, logistics infrastructure fund has been identified as a critical enabler of the country’s port development.
The committee, therefore, has six months to submit its report on modalities through which development, expansion and operations of ports could be funded.
They are also to come up with a structure that could galvanise support to enhance the capacity of Ghanaians to participate more effectively in the sector.
The committee would also determine adequate financial capital to replenish the fund apart from the GPHA contributing some percentage of its earnings into the fund as mandated by PNDC Law 160.
“We believe the fund, if well thought out and well turned out, will become the solution that will help in the reduction of the cost of doing business in the country,” Mr Ansah stated.
Chairman
For his part, the chairman of the committee pledged that the team would work hard to ensure that the right modalities were derived for the establishment of the fund.