Management of GPHA has met with its stakeholders including importers, shipping lines and freight forwarders to finally introduce the revised Port Tariffs that is to be implemented from May 1st 2018.
Management of the Port Authority led by the General Manager for Business Development, Samuel Ntow-Kummi and supported by the department of Marketing and Corporate Affairs first engaged staff of Takoradi Port.
“The tariff is our main financial instrument that transforms or translates our operations into revenue. So, when the economics around it change, we need to revise the tariffs otherwise then we are not operating on the principle of sound commercial management,” the General Manger for Business Development of GPHA said.
The team also engaged stakeholders within the Port community and assured them that the changes in the tariff is so insignificant that they may not even be noticed.
“They are very marginal. The results of applying the 4% of the dollar items and the 16% for the cedi component, you don’t actually feel the differences so much,” the General Manager for Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Esther Gyebi-Donkor said.
“We have increased some items, we have reduced some items, we have exempted some items and then we have also introduced some few items. We have introduced an item we call vessel dues or port dues on vessels,” Samuel Ntow-Kummi further informed.
The Management team also met with the staff and stakeholders within the Port Community in Tema including Shipping lines, importers and exporters associations, state agencies operating in the Port, Freight forwarders or clearing agents and all service providers of the Port Community.
“For instance, in Port dues, we have reduced the rates for Shea butter and Shea nuts” the General Manager for Business Development noted.
The Managers of Ghana’s Ports say it had not increase its tariff since 2015, hence, the need to do so now considering expenditure incurred in improving the Port performance and other national economic factors.
According to the Port Authority, following consultations with key associations, and approval from the Ghana Shippers Authority, the GPHA port tariffs has been generally increased by 4% on dollar items, whereas import items in cedis have been increased by 16 % and exports by 10%.
There were also reductions on some export services in order to encourage export to meet national economic objectives of balancing exports against import trade.
“Current management led by the Director General has the vision of promoting exports. He is so worried about the imbalance in our trade, where we have most of the cargoes that we handle in our ports being imports against exports. Even when you take the transit cargo it is the same trend. Virtually all the transits are imports and we have a very quantity as exports so we did not increase the rates for exports. And in some of the areas, it is reduced so that we can encourage exports through the port,” the General Manager for Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Esther Gyebi-Donkor intimated.
Some concerns were raised by the stakeholders and corresponding responses were offered by the Port Authority.