Reduce high port charges – McDan Boss

Daniel McKorley, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of McDan Shipping Company Limited, a wholly-owned Ghanaian logistics provider, has attributed problems in the logistics industry to the high cost of doing business at the country’s ports and the lack of professionalism.

Mr McKorley, who made the call in an interview with BUSINESS GUIDE on the sidelines of a business and networking dinner he hosted at his East Legon residence on Friday for members of the Ghana Canada Chamber of Commerce, said the cost of doing business in Ghana in terms of the ports was still high as compared to Ghana’s neighbouring countries.

“We are losing a lot of business to other countries around us. The costs are so expensive that companies now choose to use Ivory Coast or Togo. And Government is also losing a lot of revenue through this.

According to him, insurance companies and banks operating in the country were not helping the logistics companies.

Losses

Even though we exceeded our target for the year, we lost over $2 million this year alone, he stated.

“We lost a lot of business because most of our partners asked us to quote to move let’s say a whole plant to some countries in the sub-region but when we considered the shipping line charges and terminal charges, moving such a consignment out was still too high.

McDan’s specialty

“If you really look at the terrain, we are doing end-to-end logistics and this is not done by many companies. We are doing either door-to-door, port-to-door, port-to-port. We’re doing the whole chain.

“Let’s say your company procures a shipment from Singapore and wants it delivered to Sefwi Wiawso. We come in with how to arrange with the best air or shipping line in terms of time and cost.

“We come in with the best insurance policy for you and the best module. What sets us apart, also, is that we are one of the best in terms of project cargo. When I talk about projects which are one-off, for example, Bui Dam, all logistics to the dam site has to be on time at the budgeted cost. That is the professionalism I am talking about. So no cargo is too small or big. We carry some of the heaviest stuff because we have the equipment,” he said.

Investment

“This year alone, we invested almost $3 million in buying cranes, trucks, forklifts, etc. Next year, we intend to invest more. We are an indigenous company and we know the terrain very well. I don’t think any company can come and compete with us in our terrain in terms of cost and time.

Expansion

“I have my own offices in Sierra Leone, Liberia. And I just started operations in Equatorial Guinea. I bought into the biggest logistic company there. We are doing a lot of the oil logistics in that country. We are going into South Sudan and Uganda. We are doing something too in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

McDan Shipping, which received the Golden Transport Award 2007 at Madrid, Spain, won the best trade name in Paris, and emerged the 29th best company on the GC 100 recently.