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Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo has indicated that all relevant bodies concerned with the clearing of goods at the port would be tasked to undertake joint operations in order to ensure that the process is smooth and fast, starting September 1, this year.

This, he stressed, is necessary to ensure that the port becomes a centre of excellence for other ports within the sub region, and also do away with the unnecessary delays associated with operations at the port.

The Senior Minister said this, Wednesday, when he undertook a working visit to the Tema port to acquaint himself with the operations of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.

“Our aim is to make all the transactions here as friendly as possible to the business community.Time is money; most of these people require the raw materials for their jobs so if you have to load and unload, that kind of thing, it creates problem for their operations and it gives room for corruption as well,” Mr Osafo Maafo held.

“We are particularly impressed with the BNI who already have decided to do this joint inspection with the Customs so that when they suspect that there are things in certain special containers, they inform the Customs who will join them and do the inspection together.

“Most of the inspections should be done jointly. The idea of the Customs doing their inspection, they finish and then the National Security people come round and say ‘well, we suspect this particular container or something therefore after you've loaded and you are about to leave, you have to bring everything down for their inspection’. This we think creates a lot of problem for the smooth operations at the port,” he said.

Joined by the Director General of GPHA, Paul Asare Ansah, the Senior Minister , explained that his visit was to talk with the all the players and to see how “we can ensure that doing business at this port is very smooth. We can make it very business friendly so our first place of call was to talk to the customs people, those who are in charge of the revenue here.”

Mr Osafo-Maafo mentioned that the Akufo-Addo government, being a business friendly one, was ready to promote the private sector and make it the engine of growth.

He stressed: “the private sector will be the main source to generate growth and employment in this country. We have a very serious problem of unemployment, we have a problem with the rate of our growth and we can improve upon all these by promoting a very vibrant private sector.”

He added, “Perhaps, the most important facility to support the private sector deliver is this place, the port. All plant and machinery coming to Ghana, most of them will pass through here. Raw materials will pass through here. Everything that goes into production, industry-wise and even support for agriculture, our fertilizer, our basic food imports, all will pass through here. So the private sector is key and if it is key then as much as possible, we should make sure that the private sector operates very smoothly.”