Report by Nana POKU
The President of Ghana Trade Advocacy, Mr David Amoateng, has revealed that Ghanaian importers lose on average about 840 million dollars a month through payment of demurrage at the country’s ports This works out to about 10 billion dollars a year.
According to him, being an importer himself, he finds this development outrageous and non-commonsensical. This is because this huge charge levied on importers if localised can help stabilise our economy and currency.
“We sit here and cry about scarcity of dollars to import goods culminating in the high exchange rate affecting our local currency, but we can do something about it as a country. Why must we allow foreign shipping lines to charge so much and take the money when local businessmen can with the support of the government do that?” he queried.
He proposed that the government can court private companies to construct a container village and gather all these uncollected goods at a local rate in cedis to reduce the rate of depreciation of the cedi. This he postulated will create employment and boost economic activities at the ports.
Mr Amoateng indicated that the private sector alone cannot do this, but with the support of the government, it can be done because of the capital outlay and policy guidelines.
Asked why the demurrage charges are so high and quoted in dollars, he answered that, because of the unstable Ghanaian currency, everything is quoted in dollars at the port. More so, as a result of the fluctuations in the Ghanaian cedi. He said that even though the Dollar to Cei rate is currently stable, it has the potential to surge upwards any day. This will force traders to change more cedis to dollars clear their goods. Otherwise, they would be forced to leave the goods to their fate rather than attract higher demurrage charges.
Mr David Amoateng was contributing to an economic dialogue on the volatility of the Ghanaian cedi against major currencies on the globe and its impact on our economy.
He prescribed some practical solutions to address the depreciation of the cedi, which is galloping like a horse in a race, making life unbearable for citizens of Ghana.
He blamed the government for not engaging stakeholders to tackle the almost hopeless situation because they may have experience and practical solutions to the problem.
Panelists included Dr. George Domfe, Prof. O Isaac Boadi, Dr Frank Bonnor, Dr Charles Atuahene, and the chairman for the event was Dr E. Obodai Provencal, the CEO of BOST. All the discussants spoke from their fields of expertise and experience and pointed out the challenges, and gave solutions to address the challenge.
The theme was: “Arresting the Cedi, Political Rhetoric or Reality?”
At the end of the dialogue, discussants were of unanimous conviction that the government must do something to stop the bleeding of the cedi by calling for a dialogue of all brains to brainstorm to solve the problem once and for all.
