New container fees for Ebola

All containers on shipping vessels to and from West African countries will now attract an additional fee of between US$250 and US$350 because of the Ebola disease.

The fee is to be used to defray the cost of a special inspection to be carried out to ensure that the vessels and their crew are safe from the disease which broke out in December last year and has since claimed about 5,000 lives in three countries within the sub-region.

An international liner shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd, has subsequently notified its customers in a circular, a copy of which was made available to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Accra, of the new fee meant to make up for the negative impact of the disease on their operations and to make their shipments safe. 

The countries affected include Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Nigeria which inspection fee will be US$250 for a 20-feet container and US$350 for a 40-feet container. 

The Health Department of the Cote d’Ivoire Port ordered mandatory health screening on vessels that have transitioned from countries hit by the Ebola pandemic before anchoring at its shores.

Impact of new fees

The mandatory health checks will, however, impact negatively on the cost of operations of shippers doing business at the Abidjan Port. 

It will also cause congestion at the port due to the inability of the authorities to screen many vessels in a day. 

A circular from the port said the quarantine team, which will undertake the screening, will handle two vessels a day.  

The company said the introduction of the mandatory health screening at the Abidjan Port will “naturally result in a huge delay as well as additional operational measures, including but not limited to diversion to other ports and extra handling and speed-ups, among others.”

“The consequent cost exposure of Hapag-Lloyd is tremendous and we see no other alternative but to recover these costs through the cargo,” it said.

The Vice President of the Greater Accra Regional Shipper Committee (GARSC) of the Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA), Mr Samuel Ayison, who released the circular to the Graphic Business, was among a delegation which paid a courtesy call at the office of the Graphic Communications Group Limited in Accra on November 7.

Raising concerns about the new charges, he said the unfriendly business climate for importers in the country, coupled with the new charges, would only increase the cost of doing business. 

“The cost of doing business in Ghana is already expensive and even added to this is that there is a new ebola charge, I don’t know if you know about it but the shipping companies are charging for the Ebola they are afraid of,” he explained.  

Although Ghana has not recorded any Ebola case since the endemic broke out, the country is considered one of the high risk destinations.

Issues about GCAP

These new ebola charges are coming at a time when importers in the country are raising concerns about the implementation of the Ghana Conformity Assessment Programme (G-CAP), a programme by the Ghana Standards Authority to prevent the importation of sub-standard goods into the country. 

According to the GARSC, under the G-CAP, inspection would be carried out at the exporting country at a fee, yet the GSA would still verify the Certificate of Conformity (CoC) and inspect some cargo by opening containers when they arrive in Ghana.

This, the committee noted, will give lead to unnecessary delays and hinder trade facilitation both in arranging shipment from the exporting countries and clearing them locally.