President John Dramani Mahama has reiterated the Government’s commitment to closely partner with the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders in delivering on the nation’s 24-Hour Economy Policy.
He said the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) had actually begun the operationalisation of the 24-Hour Economy Policy at the nation’s ports; so that the ports could run continuously 24 hours.
He reiterated the need for other agencies that had not yet put themselves into the mood to implement the 24-Hour Economy Policy to speed up; so that they could have a comprehensive implementation of the Policy at the ports.
“We know that our flagship policy, the 24-hour economy policy, is dependent on fast, efficient operations at ports of entry, airports, land borders and the ports,” President Mahama stated, during a courtesy call on him at the Presidency in Accra, by the leadership of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders.
The President said during his first administration, the government realised that they had bottlenecks in terms of the nation’s ports.
He said at that time they had tried to expand the Tema Port so many times but it had reached a point where there was nothing else that could be done about expanding it, hence the Government asked the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, together with their partners, NPS, to build the new port in Tema, adding that they were all proud of the new port.
“It’s very fast, it’s efficient, it’s got all the modern equipment that can make port operations much easier than they used to be in the past and so we did that for Tema,” he said.
He said some expansion work was also in Takoradi, which has resulted in the Takoradi Port having some excess capacity that was not being utilised.
“And so, we’re also thinking to see how we can expand the utilisation of the Takoradi Port.”
The President said the Government had fulfilled some of the promises that they had set up in terms of removing some of what was described as nuisance taxes including the e-levy.
“We are looking at streamlining the Value Added Taxes (VAT) and so currently a study is being done, and we want to remove the confusion in all the taxes,” he said.
He added: “Some people are rated at a certain three per cent, others are five per cent or seven per cent, others are 21 per cent. We think that VAT taxes should be transparent and easy to calculate and easy to pay.”
President Mahama said as part of the Mid-Year Review Budget, the Finance Minister would update the public on what they were doing to rationalize those VAT taxes, so that everybody could easily understand the taxes they had to pay and it would make compliance better.
He said they would plug the loopholes and leakages in revenue generation because if government raises the revenues those same revenues were used to improve the infrastructure to make Ghanaians’ lives better.
Mr. Stephen Adjokatcher, the President of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders, led the delegation to the Presidency to congratulate President Mahama on his massive victory in Ghana’s 2024 general election.
He mentioned issues facing the shipping sector in Ghana for redress by the President.