Shippers’ Authority, Civil Aviation Authority commit to facilitate trade

The Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) and the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have renewed their commitments to facilitate trade by air through regular inter-agency engagements for the benefit of exporters and importers.

The two state agencies made the pledge when the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Shippers’ Authority, Ms Benonita Bismarck and her team paid a courtesy call on the Aviation Authority on June 23, 2020.

The visit formed part of the GSA’s strategic plan to deepen its relationship with stakeholders in the shipping and logistics industry with the overall objective of protecting and promoting the interests of shippers in Ghana.

Ms. Bismarck stressed the need for the two organisations to strengthen their collaborative efforts to remove trade bottlenecks inhibiting trade facilitation. She said it was in furtherance to this commitment that the GSA established a Shipper Complaint and Support Unit (SCSU) at the Kotoka International Airport to readily resolve complaints of shippers.

She made an appeal to the GCAA to provide the GSA with data on trade volumes by air to enable her organisation provide holistic trade statistics on all modes of transport for policy and trade decision-making. Currently, the GSA only generates trade statistics on exports, imports and transit by sea.

Receiving the delegation on behalf of the GCAA Director-General, the Deputy Director-General (Technical) Ing. Charles Kraikue thanked the GSA for the visit and pledged his outfit’s commitment to work more closely together in the interest of stakeholders.

He expressed his organisation’s willingness to provide the GSA with up-to-date trade statistics on air cargo volumes.

Other issues that came up for discussion during the visit were challenges faced by shippers on the implementation of the new Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), the need for a centralised database for all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for the registration of shippers among others.

The GSA team also had meetings with officials of the Ghana Airport Company Limited and Air Ghana and discussed other trade facilitation issues at the airport and the way forward to addressing them.