Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has rejected assertions that port reforms to be introduced by government as part of measures to improve efficiency will lead to job losses.

Government has announced plans to fully automate the Tema and Takoradi ports effective September 1, 2017 to reduce human interference in operations and improve turnaround time.

Some critics, however, have said the move will result in job losses.

But speaking in an exclusive interview with Class News’ Kwesi Parker-Wilson on the sidelines of a one-day port conference in Accra on the theme “Improving Port Efficiency and Trade Facilitation in Ghana” on Wednesday 17 May, Dr Bawumia said: “…In Dubai, for example, it’s very automated; in Singapore, it’s very automated; in Antwerp, it’s very automated, but it doesn’t mean that automation necessarily loses you jobs. In Dubai, for example, they automated very well and did not lose even one job. The whole process they’ve maintained and retrained people. They deployed people and so there is no inconsistency between automation and innovation and creating more jobs. In fact, we expect that the efficiency at the ports, the gateway to the economy, will result in, in fact, more jobs being created in the economy and that is what we are trying to do.”

Explaining the rationale behind the conference, Dr Bawumia said: “I think we’ve got an objective to make Ghana a very business-friendly country. I paid a surprise visit to the port in February and my assessment of what was going on was that we are very inefficient as far as port clearance processes were concerned.

“A lot of customers at the port complained about how expensive the process was, so I reported to the President about what was going on and he basically said we have got to look at what is going on in other countries. We are not alone in this world, people have done this and so we decided that we should have a conference and bring in the best experiences from Singapore, Dubai, Antwerp, and also within our own country, the various stakeholders for all of us to come sit down, brainstorm and see what has worked elsewhere. Can it be adapted to Ghana? What is working in Ghana? What is not working in Ghana? Have an open mind and take some decisions going forward, so that was what motivated this conference and coming together it’s been a very useful conference…”

He was confident government would put in place the necessary steps to make the reforms successful and help improve efficiency at the ports to ease the stress of importers and exporters.