Mr Dennis Amfo-Sefah, President of Chamber of Freight and Trade and leader of the conference has supported the government’s decision to abrogate the contracts of GCNet and WestBlue so that the goods clearing process at the ports would be contracted to UNIPASS.

“The UNIPASS deal will reduce port charges and make it more profitable for us freight forwarders to operate at the ports,” Mr Amfo-Sefah said at a news conference in Accra on Tuesday.

The news conference, was attended by many other freight forwarders in support of the government’s decision to re-allocate the GCNet and WestBlue, perhaps in reaction to a similar one held by the Ghana Institute Freight Forwarders (GIFF).

While GIFF feared that government’s position that port charges under the new deal with UNIPASS, such as Free On Board (FOB), would reduce from one per cent which prevailed under GCNet and WestBlue, to 0.75 under UNIPASS was not trustworthy, CFT believe their services of UNIPASS would be better.

President of the GIFF, Kwabena Ofosu Appiah, maintained that the prevailing distribution model of operational costs would make it impossible for the reduction.The GIFF has also expressed fears that because GCNet’s contract was recently extended by the previous government, an abrogation of its contract could lead to court action that would incur judgment debt for the state.

However, Mr. Dennis Amfo-Sefah, who is popularly known as Nana Boakye, in his capacity as president of Chamber of Freight and Trade, flanked by members at the news conference thinks otherwise.“We wish to state categorically that as a Chamber, we are in full support of the UNIPASS. Currently Importers pay one per cent of CIF as CCVR fee to West Blue and 0.4 per cent on FOB to GCNet as network Charge, a total of 1.4 per cent which adds up to the cost of doing business in our country's Ports.” Mr. Amfo Sefa said.

Government in its efforts to reduce the cost of doing business is partnering the Korean Government to roll out UNIPASS, which will execute the job West Blue and GCNet did at a CHEAPER cost of 0.75 per cent, more effectively and efficiently and will bring some relief to the Ghanaian importer.

“We are solidly behind Government in its quest to find solutions to the high cost of doing business in our ports, The government says it is sure-footed on these issues that the GIFF has raised and has put into motion, measures to ensure that the transition is smooth, we don’t see why the GIFF insists on peddling speculations over a process that will benefit freight forwarders,” Mr. Amfo Sefa said.

He urged the GIFF to look out for the interest of freight forwarders rather than engaging in over-analyses that are not in the interest of the sector players.Meanwhile, Deputy Trade Minister, Carlos Ahenkorah, who had stormed the GIFF’s earlier press conference to explain government’s position on the issue said the government was not going to change its decision to give the contract to UNIPASS.