The Chairman of the Concerned Freight Forwarders Association, Dennis Sefa Amful has accused government of rushing the decision to employ the services of West Blue Consulting to solely operate a national single window at the nation’s ports.
According to him, though they are not against the move, he said, “we think that the process under which west blue was handpicked to implement this national single window platform was erred.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”YFnWZYChaN3m9hL3upNDiyJ1ZMtisRCP”]“We feel that government is in a rush. I think they could have taken their time to meet stakeholders so as to see where the bottlenecks are. If government brings up a policy and it is for the good of its people and it is instead here to injure its people then why do you bring the policy? Because we are going to implement and work with this single window platform and we think there are problems that have not been solved fundamentally, why do we go ahead?”
Government in a letter in May directed the Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper to solely engage the West Blue consulting for the purposes of the single window implementation project, which is aimed at decongesting the nation’s ports.
Some stakeholders in the industry criticized the procedures adopted by government in selecting West Blue Consulting firm for the project.
A clearing agent in Tema on Monday sued government over the matter.
The clearing agent, Michael Kweku Djan is seeking an injunction to prevent government from going ahead to award the contract to West Blue pending the final determination of the case.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Chairman of the Concerned Freight Forwarders Association, Dennis Sefa Amful said they “foresaw the court case.”
He explained that currently, cargo owners go through five processes before they have their goods cleared.
“Our port is already congested; as I speak to you…it takes us a minimum of about five days to get one file processed. Now we are moving all these jobs to one platform, one single company. Can he do this within the five days that even among the five destination inspection companies it takes five days to process one file?”
He questioned that “If all these data is sent to West Blue come September, can they process all these information to enable us clear cargo at the port? We are going to experience what Nigerians experienced. Trade is going to ground to a halt.”
Amful added that following discussions with the Ghana community network (GCNET), the company which currently operates Ghana’s integrated cargo clearing system, they believe “what West Blue is bringing on board is not new.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana