The Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana has chastised shipping line companies for their excessive increase in charges at Ghana’s Ports.

According to the Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, Mr. Sampson Asaki GPHA increased its fees for the shipping lines by only USD 35.

However, the shipping lines on the other hand have slapped, in some cases a whopping 100% on importers as shipping charges.

He said shipping charges from companies like PIL which is currently US$77 will now be US$132, Maersk Line is currently US$61 and will be US$125, MSC is currently US$65 and it will move to US$120, and Grimaldi’s charges will move from US$55 to US$155.

The Executive Secretary said such arbitrary astronomical increment should not be allowed to be paid by the Ghanaian Trader since it is going to make the cost of doing business at the Port expensive compared to other neighboring ports who are not seeing such increases by the shipping lines.

Mr. Asaki said the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority ought to be commended about the fact that, prior to increasing its charges to the shipping lines, the Authority engaged all major stakeholders in the Port from the middle of 2020, almost a year before its implementation on March 1, 2021.

He said contrary to steps taken by GPHA, the Shipping lines, on the other hand, only served notice to the importers informing them of increment in shipping charges starting March 1, 2021, with different arbitrary figures without any explanations.

He warned that the practice where shipping lines operating in Ghana just increase their charges without recourse to authority and regulations in Ghana is extremely unacceptable, illegal, and making doing business in Ghana unattractive.

The Executive Secretary of the Association, Samson Asaki said currently there is no agency that is clothed with the powers to challenge actions of shipping lines, which is a situation that has made them unacceptably powerful and negatively influencing trading in Ghana.

Mr. Asaki said as a matter of urgency the Ministry of Transport must intervene in the matter and call the shipping lines to order or importers and exporters will refuse to pay the charges and Trading in Ghana will suffer.