The Acting Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Paul Asare Ansah has inaugurated a nine member committee to develop modalities for the Port Infrastructure Development Fund in Tema.
Inaugurating the committee which has a six month period to finish its work, Mr. Ansah charged the committee to give off its best and conduct wide range consultations to offer the best modalities on the establishment of the fund.
According to the Director General, the Port Infrastructure Development Fund is long overdue hence the need to start now.
He was also confident that the PIDF when implemented would make the ports more efficient and refrain from borrowing to undertake some infrastructural projects where the foreign investors would own the facility for 35 years.
“If we had been responsive enough to the needs of the future and established the fund some sixteen years ago when the Port infrastructure development fund was mooted, we would not have gone for any external loan to expand our ports,” Mr. Paul Ansah stated.
He tasked the team that “whatever modalities you come up with must be aimed at rescuing the industry from a cycle of borrowing, dependency and poverty but instead put the Port on a cycle of prosperity befitting of a middle income status.”
The Port Infrastructure Development Fund when finally established, would become the ultimate solution and help minimize the cost of doing business at the ports.
Mr. Asare Ansah noted that currently there is severe pressure from some private operators in the Port to increase tariff which his outfit is currently resisting.
“As we speak, we are under severe pressure from some of the private operators in the Port to even increase tariffs. We are resisting that pressure but at the end of the day they have put in the money and therefore determine the level of profitability they may want to harness from their investment so at a point in time, we may have to yield to that pressure of tariff increment”.
“This cycle will only change when the Port infrastructure belongs solely to Ghana which obviously our motive will not only be profit but efficiency in the facilitation of trade between Ghana and our international partners” he added.
The Acting General Manager of Audit at the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Roderick Ocloo who is the Chairman of the nine member committee noted that the team would work hard to ensure the right modalities are put in place to enable the establishment of the fund.
Other members of the committee include; the Executive Secretary of Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, Sampson Asaaki Awingobit, Erasmus Mensah, Finance Manager GPHA, Ignatius Afrifa, Scanship, Kwaku Okyere Darko, Technical Steering Committee Member GIFF, Nick Danso Adjei, Stephen Acheampong, Enoch Adu Authur and Samuel Ntow Kumi.
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Source : citibusiness
