… Chamber of Freight cries
The Chamber of Freight and Trade is lamenting over Ghana’s loss of a significant part of its cargo traffic at the marine ports due to the excessive taxes and levies imposed on imports by the government.
President of the Chamber of Freight and Trade, Dennis Amfo Sefah, says there are too many levies driving away businesses from the ports of Ghana.
The Herald has seen videos of the Tema port looking empty and deserted by importers. The situation has become a major headache for the Customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
This comes as some businesses are also relocating to neighbouring Ivory Coast also over excessive taxation.
Mr Sefah, said this while speaking on GHOne TV‘s State of Affairs with Francis Abban.
“What really is happening within the freight and trade industry is troubling. What we are hearing now is that a lot of the vessel and cargo traffic is shifting to our neighbors, that is the Lome port”.
“There are too many fees and charges that are being levied upon the importer by so many different agencies. Every agency working in the port space is milking the importer and trader of the small money they can save and whenever the cost of doing business in your ports keeps rising and goes up, business people always find the cheaper alternative or port”, Mr. Amfo Sefah added.
Meanwhile, the Vehicle and Asset Dealers Association of Ghana (VADUG) has accused the government of a deliberate ploy to collapse the import sector.
Speaking on the same programme, Executive Member of VADUG, Clifford Ansu, says although the Ghana Ports and harbour in March summoned a meeting of all stakeholders in a bid to find solution to the port challenges, the issues only worsened as the underlying challenges are beyond the powers of the GPHA.
He called for the abolishment of the covid 19 health recovery levy and special import levy in the mid-year budget review if the government is committed to seeing the ports bounce back.
