Ghana risks losing portions of its import trade to competing ports in the sub-region if urgent measures are not taken to resolve persistent congestion and delays at its ports, the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG) has warned. 

 The association said it was already receiving indications that some importers were exploring routing their cargo through the Port of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire due to delays and uncertainties in clearing cargo through Ghana’s ports. 

Samson Asaki Awingobit, the Executive Secretary of the IEAG, speaking at a press conference on Monday, stated that the development should be a major concern to the government because once an importer established a reliable alternative supply chain through another regional gateway, winning back that business could become extremely difficult. 

 He said the current bottlenecks could worsen as the country approached the December peak trading period, warning that delays could result in substantial increases in cargo dwell time, storage and demurrage liabilities, truck queues and operational expenses. 

 The IEAG indicated that the challenges were not limited to physical congestion of containers but extended to a national trade competitiveness issue. 

 It said disruptions within the port ecosystem, including cargo clearance, valuation, shipping-line operations, terminal operations, documentation, transportation and regulatory processes, had direct implications for the cost and efficiency of doing business in Ghana. 

 It called for immediate and decisive government intervention to restore efficiency and predictability at the ports, stating that “Ghana cannot pursue an ambitious trade and industrialisation agenda while its ports become increasingly expensive, unpredictable and time-consuming for importers”. 

 The association also expressed concerns over what it describes as excessive routing of containers for physical and intrusive examination, saying the practice was contributing to congestion at the country’s ports. 

 According to the association, its preliminary information indicated that approximately 74 per cent of containers undergoing scanning were being routed to the red channel for physical or intrusive examination. 

It, however, stressed that the figure required independent verification and called for an immediate data-driven review of Customs’ selectivity and risk-management parameters. 

 The IEAG said the review should examine the percentages of green, yellow, and red consignments, and the proportion of red-routed containers that subsequently resulted in discrepancies, revenue recovery, or enforcement action. 

 It said it recognised Customs’ responsibility to protect state revenue and prevent smuggling, under-valuation, misclassification and other customs offences, noting, however, that a risk-management system that routinely channelled an exceptionally high proportion of cargo into intrusive examination could become a congestion-generating mechanism rather than a trade-facilitation mechanism. 

The IEAG also raised concerns about the apparent breakdown in coordinated inspections involving Customs and other regulatory agencies. 

 It said that when several agencies had a legitimate regulatory interest in the same container, their interventions should be coordinated and carried out within a clearly defined inspection window. 

 It further cited regulatory fees and charges, as well as long truck turnaround times, as other contributors to congestion, calling for an urgent government-led review of port-related regulatory fees and charges, particularly those recently increased. 

The IEAG also urged the authorities to examine the end-to-end cargo evacuation cycle, from vessel discharge and terminal handling through customs clearance, examination, truck appointment, loading and exit. 

 It said the objective should be to reduce unnecessary delays and improve the efficiency of cargo evacuation.