He raised this concern during a briefing with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Transportation, which paid a familiarization visit to the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA).

Dr. Kamal-Deen Ali stressed the need for urgent investments in sustainable port infrastructure to keep Ghana competitive in the evolving maritime industry.

“You will be surprised by how many tankers are consumed by a ship. These big tankers that we see and they are entering into a filling station that most of us go and buy small small, a number of them will offload into a ship in terms of the tankers. So going forward the global community is moving from that. It has other implications for us as a country in terms of our offshore the oil and gas industry. But we Ghana Maritime Authority and our ministry we have to help the country move.

“Whether we like it or not, the transition is happening. What this means is that in the next couple of years, ships calling in our ports are expecting to have green fuel. No longer the Co2 they are buying now. They are expecting to have other alternative fuels that are called green fuels because it is a mandatory requirement. It is an industry driven thing. At the country level ,we need to mobilize quickly through our minister…we will go through the executive to see how we move this green because if we do not move green as quickly as possible, it is going to undermine our shipping industry and our economy. Many ships will not be coming into our ports in the next couple of years if we do not go green,” he said.

The committee on roads and transport were led by its Chairman, Isaac Adjei Mensah, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Wassa East Constituency in the Western Region.

The other members of the visiting committee were Chiwitey Dari Andrew, Vice Chairperson of the committee on roads and transport and MP for Sawla/Tuna/Kalba, Osei Nyarko Kennedy, MP for Akim Swedru and Ziedeng Anwataazumo Bede, MP for Lawra.