Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters, and other stakeholders in the shipping sector are set to stage a massive protest against the shipping lines operating at Ghana’s ports on Tuesday, September 24, 2024.
The groups say they are demonstrating against the exorbitant charges and exploitation that are perpetuated by these shipping lines.
According to these stakeholders, their businesses are suffering due to the exploitation which they say is very different compared to their operations in other African countries.
Speaking to The High Street Journal on the impending demonstration, the Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association, Samson Asaki Awingobit insisted that these unwarranted charges are piling up the cost of doing business and increasing prices of items on the market.
“Unwarranted charges are what we are fighting. We think that they are taking undue advantage of the business community which is adding up to the cost of doing business in the country. These charges must be scrapped,” he noted.
He further explained, “In other jurisdictions, if you are going for the release of your cargo, you pay something small to the shipping line. You can call it administrative charges or whatever. But here in Ghana, the situation is different. If you go to places like Benin, you can have 5 or 10 containers on one document and you pay something small. In Ghana, they will say pay 10,000 times 5 or pay 10,000 times 20, that is if you have 20 containers on one document. So you can imagine if you have to cough about 300,000 or 500,000 to pay your duty.”
Mr. Asaki further bemoaned the daily exorbitant cost of demurrage charged by these shipping lines if importers fail to clear their goods after 7 days due to the already high port charges.
He said, “some of these shipping lines are charging $100, $150 in a day converted at the prevailing rate. Sometimes their rate is even higher than the Bank of Ghana rates that we use. This cannot be done in Togo, this is not done in Ivory Coast and Benin and others but only Ghana here.”
Due to these and many other business unfriendly practices perpetuated by the shipping lines, the stakeholders say they are registering their displeasure through the protest while calling for the implementation of the new Ghana Shippers’ Authority to streamline the operations at the ports.
“It is long overdue that is why we are calling for the need for the Ghana Shippers’ Authority law to be amended so that they produce an LI to regulate these shipping lines correctly,” he noted.
The demonstration is set to begin at the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) and the Tema Port and it expected to continue till Friday.
