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Importers losing US$300
million in illegal freight charges – AGI
Accra, Nov. 7, Ghanadot/GNA – Mr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi,
President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), on
Wednesday said local importers were losing US$300 million a
year in illegal freight charges by shipping lines at the
various entry points.
He said for shipments that consignors in the country of
origin had paid freight charges to the shipping lines,
consignees in Ghana who took delivery of those shipments
also paid freight charges to the shipping lines in addition
to all the duties and handling charges at the port.
“This is illegal and it must be stopped with immediate
effect,” he said.
Mr. Oteng-Gyasi made the call at the launch of a World Bank
Group report titled, “Doing Business in Ghana 2008.”
The report, which was a project benchmarking the regulatory
cost of doing business in Ghana ranked Ghana the 87th
easiest business destination among 178 economies based on at
least 10 criteria points.
The criteria included registering property, for which Ghana
was ranked 26, protecting investors, 33, enforcing
contracts, 51, trading across borders, 61, paying taxes, 75,
closing a business, 96, starting business, 138, employing
workers also 138 and finally dealing with licenses, 140.
Mr. Oteng-Gyasi noted the the issue of double freight
charging at the entry ports was a concern to importers,
saying that the issue had been raised in several forums in
the past but very little had been done to correct the
anomaly.
He noted that although Ghana performed creditably in the
areas of reforms in property registration, investor
protection and the enforcement of contracts, there was the
need to sustain the gains through strict adherence
to deadlines and the new turn around times.
“One way we can sustain the gains is by ensuring the
availability of credit to businesses to prevent their
collapse due to inability to source funding. In that respect
it would be important for the report to also capture the
cost of credit in Ghana to assist in providing cheaper
credit for businesses,” he said.
Mr. Oteng-Gyasi noted that currently the registration period
for business in Ghana had changed from six months to a
month, but more needed to be done to ensure that the system
did not backslide.
He observed that even though the turn around time of
business registration had reduced considerably, there was
the need to choose between the colonial deed registry and
land title registry, both of which continued to ran along
side each other for the past 50 years.
Mr. Oteng-Gyasi also noted that the centrality of
institutions in the capital cities did not auger well for
the redress issues regarding business in the country, saying
that even though the report took note of the existence of
commercial courts in the country, those courts were centred
in Accra and therefore business in the other regions did not
have easy access to such facilities.
The AGI Boss also noted that one other problematic issue to
businesses in Ghana was the cost of firing workers, saying
that even though there was huge unemployment in the country,
the economy was largely labour intensive and for that, it
was expensive to sack unneeded workers.
Mr. Charles Cofie, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever noted
that Ghana Export Promotions Council (GEPC) and Ghana
Standard Boards (GSB) inspection periods usually delayed
goods meant for exports at the ports and that incurred cost
in terms of times and port charges to exporters.
He also noted that the cumbersomeness of the processes of
trade within the sub-region made the cost of shipment within
the region more expensive than the cost of shipment to
anywhere else in the world.
Mr. Cofie express unhappiness with the fact that even though
under the GCNET system of export data, exporters were
required to provide their export information online, hard
copies of export documents were still required at the ports.
“This practice is counter productive to our efforts to
facilitate the process through the online GCNET facility,”
he said.
Ms. Dzifa Amegashi, Director of Corporate Finance at CAL
Bank said there was the need for countries in the sub-region
to also perform as high as Ghana in order to cut down the
cost of doing business within the sub-region.
“Our star performance as a country would mean nothing if the
other countries in the sub-region continue to perform low,”
she said.
For instance, according to the report, whereas Ghana had
made significant reforms in the at least five areas,
particularly in trading across borders, none of the
countries in the sub-region had made reforms in trading
across borders.
Mr. Kwaku Agyeman Manu, Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry
and PSI said the gains made were indicative of the prudent
monetary policies and reforms instituted by the sitting
government, but there was need to ensure that those gains
reflected in the pockets and living standards of the
ordinary Ghanaian.
GNA
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