Danger at Tema Port

Investigations conducted by the New Crusading Guide reveals some dangerous activities happening at the Tema main harbor that could jeopardize the hard earned reputation of the country, especially at a time the West African nation is struggling to curb the narcotic drug menace.

It has been observed that vehicles imported by automobile companies in their complete form are not made to undergo any form of scanning at the port even though there are two state of the art TCP scanners operating there at the moment.

At the port, low risk or exempt cargos are cleared directly through customs, that’s the GREEN CHANNEL. While high risk cargo is subjected to the RED CHANNEL inspection, and full containerized cargos directed to yellow channel for non-intrusive radiographic scanning, but it is not clear which channel these vehicles are placed.

Asked why such vehicles do not undergo scanning when they arrive at the Tema Port, an official with one of the Destination Inspection Companies (name withheld) said: “that is the procedure here. We are not allowed to scan these vehicles when they are not in shipping containers. Such vehicles are scanned only when there are goods packed in them when they arrive. In their complete form like this, we don’t scan them. That is the procedure here".

Asked how they could detect if illicit drugs or ammunitions are sealed in these vehicles that are shipped into Ghana, our source said: “yes you are right, this can happen anyway, but the procedure here is that such vehicles are not allowed to go through our scanners".

Indications are that some of these companies hide large sums of monies in such vehicles, and since they do not go through such scanners, it becomes difficult to detect such things. It was gathered that most of these vehicles are shipped only by automobile companies into the country. If the stakeholders at the port will review the system here, they we can include them in our system, but as it stands here, there is little we can do here, our source stated.