The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has disclosed that as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 through the country’s seaport, it suspended its passenger traffic in the early days of the pandemic.
Mrs Nana Esi Soderberg, Deputy General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, GPHA said the management of the Ports had to issue directives not to allow passenger traffic through Ghana’s port despite its economic prospects.
Mrs Soderberg said this at the Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office stakeholder engagement aimed at allowing both state and non-state stakeholders to interact with staff and address national issues as well as throw more light on their institution’s mandate.
The event also serves as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters to the professional growth and promotion of Tema GNA as the industrial hub, and national development, in general, is also to deepen the working relations between the Agency and its stakeholders.
Speaking on: “The state of Ghana’s seaports under the COVID-19 pandemic Mrs Soderberg said the country used to receive on the average four vessels of passenger traffic annually,” adding that the passengers mostly were tourists who upon arrival visit places of interest, change their currencies and buy from vendors adding to the economic fortunes of Ghana.
She indicated that “but because of COVID-19 we quickly issued a directive that we are not accepting passenger traffic, and it’s not only us it was worldwide, a lot of countries stopped”.
Speaking on other measures put in place by the GPHA to handle the pandemic, she disclosed that even before the pandemic hit Ghana, the port authorities initiated one of its contingency plans where top management met and discussed the implications of COVID-19.
“The outcome of those meetings made the Director-General institute a multi-stakeholder COVID-19 committee, which comprises not only the rest of the port community.
It included: Ministry of Agriculture, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Navy, Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Port Health among others and as time went on others were added.
The committee she said started by structuring guidelines that would help the port and port community to operate even if there was a pandemic or disease bloats in the country.
This she said was communicated to the business public and the port community as well adding that they also incorporated into the port protocols government’s imposition of ban on foreign travels, among others.
She said during the three-week lockdown in Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Areas, GPHA provided some structures to ensure that the issues of clients were satisfactorily handled in other to avoid shutting down the port enclave.
“Subsequent to that we made some operational adjustment including allowing the nonessential, non-shift areas including administration to work from home but all operational areas were working 24/7, they were reorganized in a way that there would be minimum contact but the work did not stop,” she said.
Mrs Soderberg added that the other areas in the supply chain also did their part where some worked off-site, indicating that “there was an increase in technology so we were having more electronic meetings and conference calls and relying on government’s initiated paperless system for the clearance process”.
The third GNA-Tema Stakeholder Engagement and Workers Appreciation Day seminar was attended by the National Commission for Civic Education, the Association of Oil Marketing Companies, and the Tema Regional Police Command.
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