Members of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) are warming themselves up to picket at the premises of the various shipping agencies for contributing to the high cost of doing business at the ports.
But before they strike, GIFF has served an emergency notice to the Ministry of Transport to swiftly instruct the Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) to urgently bring the shipping lines under control or at an unannounced date, GIFF, GUTA and importers would lay down their tools and demonstrate and picket at the premises of the shipping lines.
Edward Akrong, President of GIFF, told a section of the media in Tema that, the abnormal freight charges by the various shipping lines are making most importers go down on their knees, and those who are able to withstand the shocks, pass the astronomical charges on to the consumers.
Enumerating a few of the worrying concerns to the media, Mr Akrong said today, for example, an importer who paid US$3,000 to clear a 40-footer container not too long ago, pays between US$12,000 and US$15,000 to clear the same goods.
“The shipping lines, after issuing the freight charges to importers before the arrival of their containers, later put other unfair charges on the container for the importer to pay when the cargo arrives at the port.
Now, because the importer does not want to incur demurrage for delaying in clearing the cargo, he is forced to pay the additional unbudgeted freight charges slapped at them by the shipping lines,” Mr Akrong illustrated.
Other disturbing concerns, he cited included the shipping lines’ varrying forex rates which are against those of the Bank of Ghana and free days’ charges by the shipping lines contrary to the Shipping Lines Interpretation Act 792 section 44(5) of 2009.
Mr Akrong said his predecessors had done their best to court governments’ attentions to their fight that started many years ago “but considering how the struggles and fight have been disregarded by our state leaders, GIFF, TUC, GUTA and importers have resolved to unite to fight our battle because we are in the business.
“We are going to force the government to revisit the Shippers’ Authority Act for multinationals to comply with our country’s rule of engagement. Ghana cannot continue to be mentioned as having the port with the highest port charges of over six percent with Togo being the lowest with about 0.5 percent in the subregion”.
Joseph Obeng, President of GUTA, was at the press conference to support the concerns raised by GIFF.
By: Umar Sheriff Musah