Shippers Authority Outdoors National Exec Committee

The Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) has inaugurated members that constitute  the National Executive Committee of the Borderless Alliance, a public private partnership initiative set up to eliminate bottlenecks at border crossings between Ghana and its neighboring countries.

The over fifteen members committee consists of persons from 13 different organizations such as DAMCO Logistics Ghana Limited, Ghana Shippers Authority, Tarzan Enterprise Limited, Wileb Mining, Nestle Central and West Africa, OLAM Ghana Office and British America Tobacco.

The rest are USAID Advance Project, Ecobank Ghana Limited, National Facilitation Committee, Ghana Association of Industries, Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Ghana Export Promotion Agency. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony in Accra yesterday, Deputy Chief Executive of the Ghana Shipper's Authority, Mr. Emmanuel Martey said the initiative was aimed at protecting and promoting the services of traders in the sub-region.

He used the opportunity to applaud the West Africa Trade Hub (WATH) and its collaborators for their persistence in highlighting the harassments on the West Africa trade and transports corridors and coming out with innovative strategies to arrest the situations.

Mr. Martey added that WATH had for over five years been sensitizing stakeholders on the need to ensure free flow of traffic within the trade corridors of the sub region which has brought about the Borderless Alliance advocacy.

He said the SCSU are located in places like Aflao in the Volta Region for the Ghana\Togo border, the port of Takoradi, Kotoka International Airport and Elubo in the Western Region for the Ghana\Cote D'Ivoire border.

Mr. Martey hinted that the Ministry of Transport has promised the passage of the Ghana Shipper's Authority Regulations L.I 2190 (2012), which would seek to eliminate  illegitimate charges in the industry and further create a quality and competitive standards of shipping services.

'It is important to know that L.I 2190 is not in place to disadvantage any institution in the industry', he stated.

The President of Borderless Alliance, Mr. Ziad Hamoui said Borderless with support from ECOWAS and UEMOA started operating in 2010 as a campaign team to remove barriers of trade and transport in West Africa.

But he indicated that for Borderless to address issues of effectiveness and sustainability, it later evolved into an autonomous advocacy organization with more than fifty fully registered members representing various supply chains in the region some of which include port authorities, transport organizations, freight forwarders, manufacturers, producers, among others.

'To date, the Borderless Alliance can boast of six national Borderless Alliance chapters; such as Cote D'Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, each with a slightly different flavor', he said.

A Director at the Ministry of Transport in charge of policy and planning who represented the Minister of Transport, Mrs. Dzifa Ativor assured the Borderless Alliance of the ministry's support.

He urged traders to take full advantage of the border information centres which had been established at the various borders by the Ghana Shipper's Authority and the trade hub to help them acquire the relevant information to enhance their businesses.