Key agencies in the country's shipping and logistics value chain have pledged to tackle the cluster of problems driving up the cost of doing business at the country's ports.
The stakeholders committed themselves to addressing operational bottlenecks, improving trade facilitation and implementing practical measures to reduce the cost of doing business at the country's ports.
The agencies are the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), the Ministry of Finance, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and other key players.
They made the commitment at a stakeholder forum convened by the Ghana Shippers' Authority (GSA) in Accra.
The meeting brought together government agencies and private operators whose actions and inactions shape the efficiency of the ports.
It seeks to find solutions to the myriad of challenges that shippers had raised during a series of earlier sessions held with importers and exporters as part of the GSA’s second quarter activities.
The issues, drawn from meetings with shippers grouped by import and export value into platinum, gold, silver and bronze categories, as well as with trade associations, included port congestion, delays arising from multiple inspections and regulatory processes, bureaucratic tendencies, documentation fraud, corruption and informal charges.
These factors add up to a high cost of doing business at Ghana’s ports.
Waiver
As part of efforts to mitigate the effect of congestion and its attendant delays on shippers, the Deputy Marketing Manager, Abena Serwaa Opoku-Fosu, announced that GPHA would waive rent charges on affected cargo.
She said the GPHA was continuing with interventions to modernise the ports of Tema and Takoradi to ease the movement of containers.
On security along the clearance and haulage chain, the National Security Coordinator at the Tema Port, Major Adams Suleman, assured the stakeholders that, goods would have safe passage and personnel would carry out their duties diligently.
Genuine appeals
A representative of the Ministry of Finance, Kofi Baidoo, assured stakeholders that all legitimate appeals arising from discrepancies in duty assessments generated by the Republican AI Duty System would be addressed.
He urged shippers affected by such discrepancies to submit their complaints through the appropriate channels to facilitate prompt resolution.
All the agencies who attended the meeting reaffirmed their commitment to the automation of port processes, and to giving swift attention to allegations of corruption at the port once they are formally brought to the notice of authorities.
It was noted that the transition to electronic transactions on the ICUMS platform was designed to reduce face-to-face interaction, and thereby reduce the discretionary interventions that breed unofficial payments.
Continued follow-up
The Head of the Shipper Services and Trade Facilitation Department at GSA, Monica Josiah, stated that the authority would continue to collect complaints from shippers and shipping service providers and engage the relevant agencies to ensure that commitments made at the forum resulted in tangible improvements at the ports.
She explained that GSA remained committed to advocating for stakeholders and monitoring the implementation of agreed interventions.
She stressed that reducing the cost of doing business at the ports was critical to strengthening Ghana's competitiveness as a trade and transit hub.
She added that the effort would also position the country to attract more transit cargo from its land-linked neighbouring countries.