The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) is to introduce an additional e-payment system to enhance cargo clearing at the ports.

The General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Affairs at the GPHA, Esther Gyebi-Donkor, said the Port Authority had created an e-payment platform to allow clients to do transactions through mobile money, visa and Mastercards.

Mrs Gyebi-Donkor noted that the move was part of efforts to increase automation at the Ports and make doing business faster, easy, secure and convenient.

According to her, the platform was piloted on some port clients and expected to be rolled out soon. The mobile application would also afford clients the opportunity to easily validate invoices and calculate port charges.

Touching on cargo clearance processes, she said even though Ghana was a little late in fully implementing the Single Window System, it brought remarkable successes and made the country’s seaports efficient.

She said the port automation, including the Paperless Port clearance process, and the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS), had streamlined the activities of statutory agencies operating in the clearance chain and impacted positively on the cost of doing business at the ports.

Mrs Gyebi-Donkor said the automation had also reduced the clearance time, accessing of invoices by customers, and paying and taking delivery of cargoes.

She said automation had helped in the reduction of falsification of documents through system integrations with other stakeholders which led to an increase in revenue.

She also commended the freight forwarding fraternity for giving the needed feedback on the port clearance system which she said contributed to making Ghana’s ports more efficient.