Dubai Customs promise tens of millions of dollars investment in West Blue Consulting to transform Ghana’s ports

Customs World has promised to inject tens of millions of dollars’ investment in West Blue Consulting with the aim of transforming the Custom systems in Ghana’s Ports.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with host of Eye on Port, Samuel Agyemang, the Head of Business Development at Customs World, Adolphe Chaiban, stated that the political will to revolutionize Ghana ports gave impetus for their current desire for assistance.

“The political will of the government really helped us, and it helped us within record time to sign a mutual assistance agreement in customs matters. So today, we have a government to government bilateral agreement assisting each country with its customs operations,” he said.

He continued that Customs World has identified areas they are interested in developing, to reach the goal of optimum ports efficiency as envisioned at the ports efficiency conference held recently.

“I think there is a lot of what you may call issues, but we call opportunities. After that conference we built an algorithm and we took a lot of data and put it into this algorithm. This algorithm simulates what the change will be if we get involved. And the results were very positive,” he said.

Adolphe Chaiban noted that within the West African sub-region, Ghana stands tall as a favourable destination to do business.

“There is a massive potential here. I don’t think it’s seen its full potential yet, but we believe in Ghana, we believe that it can. It is a business-friendly community and it has the potential to become the regional hub,” he said.

On whether the name of West Blue will change following the takeover, Adolphe Chaiban, said the needed consultation is underway.

“It is too soon to say we are letting go of the West Blue name or adopting it for the ports and customs. We are studying it. There are some legal ramifications. There are some issues and we need to speak to all stakeholders such as our clients and to make sure that everything is cleared with them before we make any radical change. We believe in speaking to everyone before we make change,” he noted.

Mr. Chaiban, on the organization’s behalf also expressed the commitment of Dubai World Customs to keep personnel of West Blue Consulting, even in the event of their takeover.

“We are committed to keeping everyone in West Blue, and we are committed to growing the team, to provide jobs and to train. It is something that we do worldwide. We employ, as a group 42,000 employees worldwide in about 40 countries. But we try to work as local as possible,” he assured.