Professor Ransford Gyampo, the Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA), has assured us that he will work hard to address the concerns of all stakeholders in the sector.

He said, “I am not going to be an armchair CEO who sits and receives reports on what is going on elsewhere. I will visit the various areas and places that our mandate requires and listen to the officials, agencies, and stakeholders working there so that I can get firsthand information about the real issues and how we can work together to address them.”

Prof. Gyampo gave the assurance when he, accompanied by some officials from the GSA, visited the Paga Border in the Upper East Region, to interact with shippers, freight forwarders, Customs, Immigration and Police officers amongst other agencies.

The visit was to engage the officers, agencies and the various stakeholders at the Paga Border to promote transparency, a peaceful working environment and collaboration, to ensure efficiency.

Concerns raised by shippers and shipping lines included the high cost of doing business, with some saying shipping was attributing the situation to the high taxes and charges.
Professor Gyampo assured the shippers, shipping lines and members of the public that the new GSA Act would help address many of their challenges.

He said “We are working to deepen our interagency collaboration to help us to effectively implement our Act so that at the end of the day, Ghana will remain the best place for doing business.

“We are keen on protecting the interest of all shippers so that shipping lines, drivers and freight forwarders will all be happy.”

Mr Jonah Auinga, the Managing Director of Jonia Creation, applauded the CEO and the team for their visit and appealed for an urgent review of the shipping cost, to reduce the cost of doing business in the country.

He explained that presently the cost of shipping a product was more than three times the cost of the product.