As a business man and entrepreneur I can give you my views as well as others I know or heard of to the decline of cargo shipping. Yes the police harassment on the roads is some contributing factor however the major factor is ... read full comment
As a business man and entrepreneur I can give you my views as well as others I know or heard of to the decline of cargo shipping. Yes the police harassment on the roads is some contributing factor however the major factor is the port extortions in itself. There is no transparency at all from the official’s side which compound on the problems of what to expect from your own agent.
You don’t know who is telling the truth but you are only sure that you are being ripped off. If one is doing a duty up to $6000 for a car costing about $3000 and meeting all deadlines and the 10 year rule, it is a rip off. A 6.7 tons excavator went under rent for 53 days and it cost GHC4500 in 2012, and handling charges was GHC3500 whilst a similar item delayed at the Tilbury Docks in UK cost just under £100 for a year and a half within that same year.
Is Ghana a serious nation to do business? That’s a joke, it will take us another 100 years to understand about doing business coupling with what democracy is all about. We missed the two by a whole hundred years.
It is impossible to even get a correct quote (even in dollars) for an item at the ports before you bring it in. Try challenging the authorities at the port to verify and authenticate charges and you are in for a surprise by those gods (so they see themselves). They are a law unto no one, unless you threaten them with a high profile official person before they might back down and be reasonable. Even still at a very high cost which does not happen in our neighbouring countries. I asked the President for such an outrageous charges at our ports and he said “if it was that bad, the Burkina’s would not bring their goods through our shores”. He has forgotten that they don’t pay taxes to Ghana except handling charges. Also at that time, Ivory Coast was at war, which has a direct train link to Burkina. It is true that our ports are now more secure than that of Togo which you should remember is duty free.
As a business man and entrepreneur I can give you my views as well as others I know or heard of to the decline of cargo shipping. Yes the police harassment on the roads is some contributing factor however the major factor is ...
read full comment