Prices of goods and services may witness significant reductions in the coming months following President Mahama’s directive to subject all shipping line charges to parliamentary approval.
This is the assertion of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, which has welcomed the directive as a timely and much-needed intervention that may help reduce inflationary pressures associated with imports.
Speaking to Citi Business News, the Executive Secretary of the Association, Samson Asaki Awingobit, said the directive, if fully implemented, would address some longstanding bottlenecks in the country’s import and export system.
If the government succeeds by getting parliament to approve these handling charges by getting the shipping lines to go strictly by the laws, what it means is that the number of duplicated charges will be a thing of the past,” he said.
He stressed that: “This will boost morale and reduce the cost of doing business at the ports and then, of course, large and by will also extend to the consumer, leading to total reduction of cost of goods in the market.”
The President’s directive was issued on Friday, July 11, 2025, during a meeting with the leadership of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) at the Jubilee House in Accra.
President Mahama said the measure is intended to eliminate unapproved administrative charges imposed by shipping lines and to promote greater transparency in port operations.
His comments follow complaints from freight forwarders over what they described as excessive and arbitrary charges by shipping lines. Amongst the concerns is that some lines demand administrative fees in US dollars per container, even when multiple containers are covered by a single bill of lading.
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