High port charges affecting business

Page 50: Daily Graphic, July 2, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE high port charges in Ghana have been identified as the major contributory factor to the re-routing of imports meant for the country through the Lome Port.
The other factors are the easy manipulation of the system at the land borders and negligible fees charged at the ports of neighbouring countries.
To compound the problem ,Ghana’s loose borders have facilitated smuggling, high interest rates, depreciation of the cedi against the major foreign currencies and the unpredictable petroleum market.
The Corporate Affairs Manager of the Finatrade Group of Companies, Mr John Awuni, told the Daily Graphic that unless the government, port authorities and the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) took drastic measures to stem the tide, more businesses would use the Lome port and resort to illegal activities, a situation, which he noted would let the state lose a lot of revenue.
He explained that besides the ECOWAS and EDIF charges, importers had to pay VAT and NHIL at the ports in Ghana bringing levies alone to about 17 per cent.
That, he said, was apart from other charges such as duties, inspection fees, service charges and fees to the Ghana Shippers Council that importers had to pay.
According to him, the problem would worsen should the government impose 20 per cent levy on rice imports because total levies would rise to about 37 per cent which would result in the relocation of more shipments to the Lome port and its attendant smuggling into the country.
Mr Awuni said the result of such activities was that same products at the market were sold at different prices with those from other ports being sold at lower prices than the products from the Ghanaian ports.
He said smuggling was rampant particularly in the Volta, Western, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions.
He said the situation had led to the under-cutting of prices of the smuggled goods particularly rice and canned tomatoes.
According to him, those firms which were still importing their products through the Takoradi and Tema ports suffered the most, as a result most of such firms were re-locating to Lome.
Mr Awuni said there had not been any sustained effort from governments to stop smuggling adding that since genuine business owners did not want to suffer losses, they also had to relocate to Lome where the goods were classified as transit.
He explained that the goods were then reloaded at the land borders where those who used the official entry points paid pittances because they were able to manipulate the system whereas the smugglers used unapproved routes to bring in their commodities without paying anything.