The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has halted the construction of some illegal mini ports and jetties by some private companies along the country’s coast.
GPHA disclosed that a private developer, LIB Limited, is putting up a facility at Tema which is expected to receive Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) imports for onward distribution and sale to oil marketing companies.
Also, a fishing company, Omanye Oceans Fisheries Limited, is alleged to be constructing a boat yard along the shores of the Volta River at Anyanui in the Volta Region while cement manufacturer, Diamond Cement Limited, is also reported to be developing a jetty at Keta in the same region to receive clinker imports for the production of cement at its factory in Aflao.
Throwing more light on the development, the acting Director-General of the GPHA, Mr Paul Ansah Asare, said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday that his outfit will take actions against the organisations in question because it breaches the PNDC Law 160 of 1986, which makes the GPHA the sole state entity authorized to plan, build, develop, manage, operate and control port facilities.
On Omanye’s supposed port, Mr. Asare said when they visited the site last Friday, “there were a lot of vessels and a lot of Chinese nationals over there; a clear indication that some port facility has been developed there without recourse to the due process of law.”
“Not only that place but there is another place close to Tema where the people had developed about 600 meters of a jetty into the sea. And there were indication that somewhere around Keta as well Diamond Cement is also preparing to develop a similar facility, all of them without due process of the law. It is a recipe for disaster,” he added.
Mr. Asare noted that the framers of the PNDC Law 160 of 1986 “took cognizance of the seriousness of operating a ports…the law gives such prerogative to the president through an executive instrument, not even through the approval of somebody at the presidency. But an executive instrument must be issued by the president to declare an enclave as a port. So it’s not a very simple thing to say that you have received a permit from the environmental protection or the metropolitan assembly or Ghana maritime authority so you are in for a port just as you cannot go for a land somewhere and say you are developing an international airport so you cannot do that for a port.”
“It’s a huge operation they are about to undertake and with regards to the Diamond cement facility they are building a vessel that can bring about 40,000 tons of clinker. It’s a huge operation synonymous to what is happening in our ports,” the acting GPHA boss noted.
When asked why they had not clamped down on such operations in the past, the acting Director General said the said companies had contacted them with regards to such projects “but that did not conclude into granting of licenses on what they are doing.”
“Granted that the monitoring was weak at that time, I believe that now the will power is there to restore law and order. That is why our intelligence picked the signal and immediately we followed up to stop what was going on because it’s not in the interest of the country,” he added.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
