Prosper Douglas Kwaku Bani
Local importers have expressed dissatisfaction with untoward treatment being meted out to them by the Presidential Taskforce operating at the Tema Port.
According to the importers, who spoke to CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE yesterday in Accra, members of the taskforce, led by one Okoro and Olivier, an Ivorian who is married to a Ghanaian lady, are terrorizing them.
Olivier was previously chased out of the port when he allegedly pulled a gun on some people over confiscated cars during the tenure of Carl Wilson.
The Taskforce reports to the Chief of Staff at the Office of the President, Prosper Douglas Kweku Bani.
“When an importers load the goods into articulated trucks at the Tema Port, these go through the Destination Inspection points to be scanned, among other activities. As soon as the trucks loaded with the goods leave the port and are on their way to their destinations, the Taskforce then trails the importers midway and intercepts them.
“They are then told to go and look for people to come and offload all the goods from the articulated trucks onto the ground for new checks, all at the expense of the importer. Such has been the trend since the Presidential Taskforce was instituted at the Tema Port.”
The articulated trucks are not allowed to return to the destination inspection points for the checks to be conducted on them but rather the exercise is done midway to the destination.
“This costs us a lot of time and money because our customers who may be waiting to take their consignments in the process turn to other avenues for the goods,” they noted.
Paulina Amoah, the Chairperson of the Concerned Local Importers Association, said although government explained that the taskforce was formed to check corruption, their experience shows the contrary.
“Another issue is the disparity between the values given by the Destination Inspection Companies and that of CEPS. We have noticed that CEPS forces higher values of goods on us in order to meet their revenue target. However, unfortunately this also increases our cost and virtually putting out of business, as we are unable to pay back the already high interest rate bank loans.
“As if the above listed challenges are not enough, importers and agents have to queue for as long as five days or more to get access to the scanner because the scanners often develop faults due to pressure since it scans more than the expected 20 containers daily.”
The local importers said that the delays had affected their businesses, adding that the depreciation of cedi against major currencies had resulted in huge loses that affect their operations.
From the preventive checks centre, importers are further made to go to the National Security and then to GPHA for security checks.
“All of such procedures take about 10 days before we are able to completely clear our goods,” Ms Amoah noted.
She therefore reiterated her call on government to help address the problems as soon as possible.
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