The CEO of the World Trade Centre Accra, Emmanuel Doni-Kwame, is urging a diversification of the country’s economy to ensure that jobs are created to cater for all the hands that will be rendered jobless when the country goes paperless at the ports in September.
Government has set September 1, 2017 for the country to go paperless as far as transactions in the clearance chain are concerned.
Vice president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia at a recently held port efficiency conference organised by his office announced government’s quest and commitment to see full automation of the processes involved in cargo clearance through paperless transactions.
The move, according to the vice president, will allow a high level of efficiency in the ports, eliminate corruption and reduce the time and cost of doing business.
The vice president also called for the integration of all the systems in the port and agencies who play various roles in the clearance chain to deal with the issue of having numerous agencies inspecting cargo at different times leading to delays.
But Mr. Doni-Kwame believes the country must work at adding value to her agricultural products. “As we automate, it will get to a stage where all these people we see handling trade facilitation at the ports will reduce.
“With the automation, you sit in your office and you are able to monitor your goods as they are being loaded from another port and then monitor as it is being discharged at your port and transported to your warehouse. So what happens to all that labour? You are supposed to create jobs, but in the other productive sectors. So we need to get the necessary investment so that we can start adding value to our agricultural products and so on,” he noted.
