The former President of Ghana and the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has urged the Ghana port operators to commit to making Ghana’s ports competitive. He indicated that due to the several ports from the country’s neighboring countries, the only way to get returns on investment into the port is to make it competitive.

He disclosed that the expansion work on the Tema Port in collaboration with Meridian Port Services (MPS) which began in 2016 under his administration has the sole aim of making Ghana’s port competitive by reducing the pressure and load on the existing port.

“It’s all about competition. We are not the only port on the West coast of Africa; we are in competition with Abidjan, we are in competition with Lome, Kotonu, and Apapa and so we must be as competitive as possible so that our port will be the first port of choice… government could not do it alone we didn’t have that kind of muscle to borrow the money and do it so we engaged MPS”.
John Dramani Mahama

He further indicated that with the second phase of the project underway, the volume of work will increase. He urged the operators of the port to be as efficient in their work so that they could take complete advantage of the expansion work being done on the port.

He pledged that his government would rectify the violation of Customs Act 43 which reserves downstream clearing and forwarding of goods for indigenous companies by ensuring that only domestic companies benefit from downstream operations.

Moreover, the former President stated that Ghana has gradually become a higher-cost transit destination than its neighboring countries; a situation that makes the other countries more appealing financially when foreign companies are considering transit trade. He emphasized that his government would provide a feasible solution for the problem.

“We also talked about fair assessment of import taxes duties…and shipping line charges. The suggestion was that we decoupled the release of documents from the shipping lines so that we could regulate that better. We have taken note of that”.
John Dramani Mahama

Port Charges and Taxes

The NDC flagbearer argued that the administrative charges for cleared goods should be on the bill of lading and not be disaggregated per container. He opined that it is unwarranted to process every container individually.

Furthermore, he pledged to get rid of the excessive state agencies that continue to unnecessarily tax imports and exports. “Let’s get a list of them; let’s see what they are doing and those who don’t need to be at the port should go and sit in their ministries and do their work from there” he added.

John Dramani Mahama noted that Ghana must make massive investments in training seafarers. He indicated that even without ships, Ghana could make a substantial profit from training seafarers through remittances they send from abroad working on ships of other countries.

He suggested that seafarers must be trained and certified to international standards to enable their exportation into the global market. “Philippines makes almost US$ 30 billion a year from their seafarers, nurses, caregivers and all that kind of thing and so it’s something that we need to look at” he stated.

Moreover, the former President indicated that the charges on imports and exports must be reviewed to increase the volume of imported and exported goods which will prove profitable for the country’s economy. He argued that efforts will be made to increase exports to ensure stable exchange rates.

Accordingly, John Dramani Mahama pledged to build a landing site for landlocked states neighboring to the north of the country. He argued that this would ensure that the pressure on the commercial roads would be reduced and delivery of containers to these states would be made easy.