From Inusa Musah
Twenty-two business delegations from different agro-companies in the United States of America (USA) have visited the Tema Port to learn and observe firsthand the facilities available to expand their markets abroad.
Presently, the US agro investment in Ghana stands at about US$50 billion, from US$150 billion. The People’s Republic of China has beaten the US agro investment with about US$280 from her earlier investment of about US$70 billion.
Going by the huge agro investment gap between the US and China, therefore, the US agro business industry visited the Tema Port to observe its facilities that would meet their export size from Ghana to the rest of the West African sub-region.
At a breakfast meeting, the Marketing and Public Relations Manager of the Tema Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Mr. Paul Asare Ansah, told the US business delegation that the Port is the most enhanced and efficient in the West African sub-region.
That, he explained, is due to the advanced modern technological moves to block all illegal entries into the port, and also tighten security in and around the area. The move is to make foreign and local persons who do business in and around the Tema Port feel secure that their goods are constantly going to be in safe hands at the port.
Aside some 100 close circuit television (CCTV) camera installations already affixed at vantage points within and outside the port, Mr. Paul Asare Ansah told his guests that an electronic or automated security system has been introduced to check illegal entries of persons.
Electronic identification cards, he went on, have been issued to persons who have a direct business with the port. To further clamp down on illegal entries, fingerprint and image identification equipment have been mounted at all entry points of the port, hence, assuring how goods of importers and exporters are safe in the Tema Port.
The automated security system, he noted, is to help screen ‘thievery’ minds from decent and genuine business persons who want to enter the port to transact business.
Continuing, Mr. Paul Ansah described how the port security agencies, together with the Ghana Navy, Maritime Police and Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), regularly embark on patrols of the sea and the inner port premises to ensure that vessels at anchorage and those leaving the waters of Ghana are heavily protected.
Touching on turn round time for container vessels, the Tema GPHA Marketing and Public Relations Manager explained that the turn round time for container vessels had taken a nosedive from four days. That, he said, is due to four versatile mobile harbour cranes the Port has acquired, explaining that each mobile crane can do 20 moves per hour, and with a twin spreader fixed to it, a crane can do 40 moves per hour.
The productivity level of the cranes in the port has improved efficiency and productivity, he told the US agro delegations. Seated in the breakfast meeting was Mr. Jacob Adorkor, Director of Tema Ports, and topping up, he said the Port has an 800 twenty footer-equivalent unit (TEU) reefer yard and other facilities that can contain second generation cargoes.
Besides, he said, the Port is reclaiming about 4 kilometres of land from the sea for expansion of its operationable land area to enable it hold third generation cargoes. The US agro delegation later toured the Fruit Terminals in the port and the Reefer Yard to be informed of the Tema Port’s readiness to be their gateway in agro exports and imports.
A member of the delegation, Phil Karsting, an Administrator at the US Department of Agriculture, told The Chronicle that the group was impressed with the facilities they saw during their tour of the port. The delegation, he said, would take a positive decision and advantage to invest in Ghana’s agro industry to enhance US-Ghana bilateral trade in agriculture.