GPHA BOSS WORRIED OVER IMPORTATION OF FOREST PRODUCTS

The acting Director General (DG) of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Mr. Nesta Galley, has expressed concern about the way businessmen are importing forest products into the country.

“The development is nerve-racking, given the fact that few years back, the country was exporting forest products, including timber and other products to some destinations outside the country,” he said.

Speaking in an interview with the paper at Tema last Tuesday, the GPHA Director General gave some statistics to buttress his point.

Mr. Galley explained that in 2005 alone, 791 metric tonnes of forest products were imported into the country; 558 metric tonnes in 2006; 1,389 metric tonnes in 2007, and finally 8,202 metric tonnes in 2008.

What he could not tell the paper was whether the products coming into the country were mostly hard wood from Gabon and Cameroun or not.

He pointed out that “We don't know whether the woods are hard ones or not, especially at the Tema Port, but in Takoradi sometimes they have bundles of wood like teak and other products coming in”.

The Acting Director General however revealed that the local businessmen use these imported forest products, mostly to manufacture furniture and other wood products.

The GPHA Boss noted that giving the rate at which our forest products were being depleted, to the extent that people had started importing products from other African countries, there was the urgent need for the country to embark on re-afforestation, to restock our reserves to forestall further degradation, as the situation was becoming alarming.

He lamented over an article he read in one of the dailies a couple of days ago, with a picture of a camel, and a caption that sought to question whether Ghana would become a desert in the next 50 years.

“So those are things which should be looked at, because if we don't take time, the environment will be damaged, and we will also have a problem with environmental climate change,” he noted.

On the issue of congestion at the ports, Mr Galley noted that the situation was getting better.

He observed that what was happening at the Tema Port now was the introduction of the weighing of the axle-load vehicles and cargo inside the port before the vehicles are allowed to move out.

He disclosed that since the introduction of the exercise a couple of months ago, vehicles which were loading almost 90 tonnes of cargo, are now carrying between 31 and 51 tonnes adding, “This is good for the country, looking at the state of our roads.”

Mr. Galley however explained that the satellite tracking devices, which are used to detect the weight of the loads in the vehicles, were in short supply.

He noted that since the tracking devices were in short supply, the GPHA is unable to track the vehicles when they leave the premises.

He revealed that his outfit had been in contact with the Indian High Commissioner, who aupplied the tracking devices, and gave the assurance that they had imported about 1,000 of the devices.

He hinted that plans were underway to expand the Takoradi Port, stating that the master plan for the project had already been finalised.

“We will look at the analysis and go through the process. Basically, in Takoradi, we will look at the oil filling terminal,” which according to him, would cost US$50 million.