Government must formulate policies that will be beneficial to importers since their contribution to the country’s revenue is very significant, Carlos Ahenkorah, a former president of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), has said.
Importers, he said, must be put into a special group for government to look into, and solve their problems with urgency.
Mr. Ahenkorah, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Carlo King Freight Logistics, a freight forwarding company, said the need for the contributions of importers to be recognised could not be over-emphasised as, according to him, “without them all import revenue to the country would not be realised”.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, he said in 2014, due to unfavourable import policies and general economic problems in the country, the total output for cargo was not encouraging as, it fell below expectation.
Mr. Ahenkorah explained that the situation led to less business activities for freight forwarders.
He added that the situation was worsened when the Ghana cedi depreciated heavily against the major currencies which led to some importers either reshipping their goods back to the country of origin or through neighbouring countries because of high cost of clearing in Ghana.
Mr Ahenkorah said some importers’ capital also eroded as the auction team confiscated their goods, and auctioned them because of their inability to raise money to clear the said goods.
He therefore urged the government to formulate policies that would mitigate the challenges importers faced as a measure to increase import revenues.
Mr. Ahenkorah appealed to government to put in place measures that would improve the economy in the year 2015 as most businesses operating in the country experienced difficulties, in 2014, due to the cedi depreciation and intense power outages.
“The situation led to no salary increment, incentives and bonuses for most workers both in the private and public sector leading to low motivation among workers,” he said.
Mr. Ahenkorah called for low interest rates to enable businesses borrow from the bank to expand and create job for the teeming unemployed youth.
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