Traders Advocacy Group-Ghana (TAGG) is urging government to put competent Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to various institutions.
It made specific reference to the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) which it said, has failed to intercede on behalf of traders when it comes to negotiations between multinationals shipping lines.
TAGG then called on the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) to make trade facilitation in Ghana comfortable and an all-inclusive to help move trade activities in the country.
According to TAGG, the Ghana Shippers Authority Act 2012 (LI 2190), Regulation 5 states on the Negotiation of charges and that at all angles from the traders’ front, it can be emphatically said that the GSA are not doing much as it claims to help make trade facilitation in Ghana comfortable.
“This is because, the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) have made it a point not to intercede on behalf of traders when it comes to negotiations between these multinationals shipping lines but rather have cosmetically painted a picture every year for traders to feel the sense of an ongoing activity with these various institutions whenever they deem it fit to impose incremental charges on the Ghanaian trader from these multinationals shipping lines, disregarding the fact that traders in Ghana pay more port charges than any other West African country.”
In a Press Release signed by the Leadership of TAGG, they asked whether these institutions are helping multinationals shipping lines or companies to extort monies from traders illegally or whether they are making it seem legal to shot trading down in Ghana.
“Is the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) leadership competent and capable enough when it comes to trade facilitation in the country and are traders being used in this country as ATM’s to pay unconscious charges without seeking for their views but rather making it as if the bureaucrat knows it all than the trader?” they asked.
By PROSPER AGBENYEGA
