Ghana Wants to Expand Maritime Industry
Port authorities in the West African states must act together to explore the full potential of the region's maritime industry to enable them compete in the global economy, Richard Anamoo, Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), has said.
According to him, there is the need to enhance trade and investment opportunities for ports infrastructure development considering the growth in traffic and increase in imports.
Anamoo said that the management of the ports has been fraught with many challenges including terrorism, pirating, the challenge of trade facilitation, among other and that it will take partnerships to be able to stand the test of time.
He urged the banks to form a syndicate that could pool their resources to finance high-yielding but huge investments, like port infrastructure projects.
Currently no bank in Ghana could solely provide the needed credit facilities for needed port expansion. He indicated that his outfit always falls on foreign banks to finance its projects, because locals do not have the capacity to lend.
Anamoo indicated that Public-Private Partnership (PPP) was very necessary to the development of ports’ capacity in Africa. He said PPP was needed for capacity expansion in infrastructure, superstructure, communication infrastructure, human capacity development and hinterland access infrastructure.
GPHA is proposing a single window system to help reduce the congestion at the ports. According the GPHA, there are too many government agencies operating currently at the ports which contribute to the delays in the clearing of the goods.
Anamoo also mentioned that seaports are part of a country’s supply chain and their efficiency is a measure of the country’s logistics connectivity index. “That is why seaports have been described variously as the “gateways” of a country’s international trade and the “lungs” of a country’s economy,” adding that Seaports play strategic roles in the socio-economic development of all nations and that landlocked country depend on seaports for their development.
