Paul Asare Ansah
The Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Paul Asare Ansah, has served notice that his outfit will prosecute some private companies, which were recently found to be constructing illegal ports.
According to the GPHA boss, he was bent on prosecuting the companies in order to serve as a deterrent to others who intend to flout the laws of the country.
It would be recalled that GPHA lately shut down some three illegal ports and jetty facilities under construction by some private companies at separate locations in the country.
The companies were Life Is Good Limited, a joint local and international company, which was building a jetty at Newtown, a suburb of Tema, in order to receive Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) imports.
A fishing company, Omanye Oceans Fisheries Limited located at Anyanui, a suburb of Keta in the Volta Region, was also alleged to be constructing a boat yard without lawful authority.
Also, a cement company was also reported to be developing a jetty at Keta to receive clinker imports for the production of cement at its factory in Aflao.
Following intelligence picked by the GPHA, the Director-General embarked on fact-finding mission, which was followed by a subsequent shutdown of the facilities.
The companies, according to Mr. Ansah, had breached the PNDC Law 160 of 1986, which made the GPHA the sole state entity authorized to plan, build, develop, manage, operate and control port facilities in Ghana.
Managers of the projects were subsequently invited with heads of the indicted firms for a meeting after which the companies apologized for their acts.
However, the Director General of GPHA pointed out that the companies have committed criminal offence for which they must be made to face the full rigors of the law.
Mr. Ansah revealed that the companies disregarded the ‘Stop Work’ inscriptions by the Authority.
“When I came to office, my intelligence picked up this development so I sent a team comprising port security, national security, police, marine police and the navy to go and ascertain what was happening there and lo and behold, we discovered that 650 meter long brick water had been developed and it was ongoing. So immediately we took steps to stop them.
“And in subsequent investigations, I realized that these people wrote to us somewhere in August 2016, looking for permit to develop. That had not been concluded yet but in line with culture of impunity, they decided to proceed.
“In September 2016 when information got to us that they were developing the facility, they were written to, to stop work, and in March 2017 we wrote to them again asking them to stop work because we realized that they were still proceeding with the project.
“So we are yet to find out where they drew that impunity from. When such things happen, you can be sure that there are more powerful people behind them.”
From Vincent Kubi, Tema