IEAG kick against “no duty – no exit” policy by government
Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG), Samson Awingobit, has kicked against the “no duty – no exit” policy instituted by at the nation’s ports by the government.
According to Mr Awingobit, the policy will render the other terminals at the Tema Port useless as the terminals as importers will no longer wish to keep their containers at the other terminals due to the extra charges to be incurred.
Adding that, charges applied to containers of importers by the other terminals such as that overseen by the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority (GPHA), serve as a source of revenue to the Authority, hence the policy when effected will mean a cancellation of a revenue source for the GPHA.
Additionally, workers at the various terminals will lose their jobs.
“I pay my duty and my container is still at MPS terminal, I won’t allow my container to go to the GPHA container yard again. Which then means that if this policy is implemented, all those GPHA workers at golden jubilee will have to loose their jobs because GPHA can no longer maintain them.
“You are not getting the job, how do you make money to generate revenue to pay staff. Those staff at the container yard will also have to be rendered jobless including the safe bond terminal, then the TBT terminal and other terminals that will no longer be getting the cargo that they used to get from the port because of this policy.
“We are saying that we will not sit down and allow this policy to take effect, and if the government pushes it to be implemented, then they should count these terminals that I’ve spoken about going out of business because no importer will agree to pay duty and still take his container to GPHA Golden Jubilee or other container terminals and pay extra charges there.
“No importer will agree to that, I am sure that probably the government didn’t consult the custom about this policy before they introduced it, because if they had consulted Customs, they would have advised them that its technically not going to be possible,” he stated.
The “no duty – no exit” policy at the Tema Port was announced by the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
According to the Finance Minister, the new policy is to improve revenue collection at the MPS Terminal at the Tema Port.
