Reflections on a recent trip to Ghana ?Part II

Clearing goods at Tema Harbor

Have you ever cleared goods from any of the two Ghanaian ports? Did you ever have to deal with a clearing agent or a customs agent? I hope you had a pleasant memory. My first brush with the nightmare that our ports have become was in 1983. On a private visit to the Netherlands, I purchased my late parents a Nissan Bluebird. Clearing that car from the port was a nightmare. In my native Adansi folklore, there is a belief that every Adansi was protected by the great god of Adansi, variously called Adansi Kuntupai, Adansi Bona or Adansi Bonsam. In my hour of need, I found Adansi Kuntupai wanting. Its magical power was no match for the bureaucracy at the ports. No wonder they have not found anyone to replace the fetish priest since that old man died years ago. Until this day, I don?t know why a car I had purchased in the name of my retired parents had to bear somebody?s name in order to clear it from the port. A supposedly ephemeral transaction took months. When the car was finally cleared, I?ve been taken to the cleaners. This was right in middle of the so-called peoples? revolution during which infantile bacchanalia and excitability held sway.

In 2005, you would think that my 1983 experiences would have been history. Not so fast. By comparison, the car we shipped in 2005 was relatively old. In April of 2005, when we bought a new car, we decided to ship our 1997 Toyota Camry LE to Ghana. The shipper in Maryland charged us $1,500 (freight) to deliver the car to Tema. He picked up the car from our house in June and promised that the car will be in Ghana by the end of July and that we should have about $2,500 to clear it from the port. None of it was accurate. The car arrived in September and we had to pay $4,000 to clear it. This is the travails of that car as it moved from the suburbs of Washington to Kumasi, Ghana.

Questions & Documents

My 1983 experiences taught me to ask the relevant questions and also to ask for the relevant documents. I peppered the shipper for my shipping documents calling him from Maryland, to North Carolina to New Jersey. His job took him to all these places to pick up shipping items for his clientele. Finally, on my last day at the office prior to my trip, he stopped by and gave me a receipt for the $1,500 I paid for the freight. He also gave me a Bill of Lading. My car was listed on the Bill of Lading, but my name was not. There were four cars on the Bill of Lading and three names. Guess whose name was missing? Yes, my name was missing from the Bill of Lading. I knew then and then that I would be reliving 1983 all over again. There was no need to quarrel. The car was already on the high seas and I had to leave for Ghana on the next business day. The question of rectifying the error was moot. This shipper was in business with a friend. Prior to shipping the car, he had also shipped two microwaves and air conditioner for us. The shipper had my address and contact number in Ghana and promised that his clearing agent would contact me as soon as the car arrived at port. He gave me the contact number for his agent in Ghana who had the air conditioner and the microwaves. These items had already arrived in Ghana and all I had to do was to take delivery. When shipping the car, he was also to ship a refrigerator, a generator and a canopy. In the middle of the shipment of the car, he had broken up with his partner. So he had our car, refrigerator, generator and the canopy. Because he had broken up with his partner, unbeknownst to me, he was now using a different clearing agent in Ghana. The car was sent to this new clearing agent while the refrigerator, generator and canopy were sent to the old agent who had the air conditioner and microwaves. Don?t ask me why. You would think that since he came for the car, the generator, the refrigerator and canopy at the same time he would ship them to the new agent. To make matters worse, he did not give me the contact information for this new agent. So while in Ghana, I kept calling the old agent whose number I had, to find out when the car would arrive. After several calls to no avail, I decided to call the shipper in Maryland to find out when the car would arrive in Ghana. He said the car arrived in Ghana two weeks ago. Why didn?t your agent contact me as you had promised? He then gave me the name and contact information of this new agent. This is where the saga of clearing my goods at the port began, a la 1983.

Credit to the Sector Ministry

I must give credit where credit is due. Remember in 1983, it took me months to clear a 1982 Nissan Bluebird. This time around, the car was cleared from the port within three days of meeting the clearing agent. Most of the clearing chokeholds had been eliminated. There was in deed a process change at the port. I must commend the authorities especially, the sector ministry for cutting through the clutter and reducing the processes that one must go through to clear goods from the port. For one thing, we have learnt a valuable lesson that when you expand a bureaucracy, its destructive capacity also expands pari passu and a favorable disposition is engendered for bribery and corruption to thrive. Who said things could not change for the better in Ghana?

Encounter with the Clearing Agent/ Itemized Bill

I first met the clearing agent in the afternoon of September 20, 2005. I had called him the previous week to get everything going by starting with the paperwork and to ask for a ball park figure of how much money I would need to clear the car. He told me it would cost me $4,000. I paid him $3,000 during our first meeting with the balance of $1,000 to be paid the next day. I then asked for an itemization of the charges. His sarcastic response, thinking that I had left his premises was ?this burger thinks he is smart?. Below is the itemization in cedis:

 Administrative Charges:	2,000,000 cedis


 Duty:				29,800,000 cedis


 IDF				50, 000 cedis


 Consolidation Charges	      3,500,000 cedis


 SCL Charges			600,000 cedis


 PBE				150,000 cedis


 Sundry Expenses		        400,000 cedis


 Professional Fees		800,000 cedis


 Temporary License		520,000 cedis


 Grand Total:			36,020,000 cedis 

Yes right, it was going to cost me thirty-six million and twenty thousand cedis to clear a 1997 Toyota Camry LE from the port. Or was it?

Doing your homework

For those importers who are ?smart? enough to ask for itemization, there is something else you should know. If you look down your long itemized list of clearing costs at your clearing agent?s office, you probably won?t find one labeled "junk". This is because the clearing agent?s fees are shrouded in mythical secrecy and most importantly, clearing agents don?t like to admit that some of the charges they?re passing off as "necessary" are really fluff. Actually, they aren?t fluff. To the clearing agent they represent an important stream of profit. If anything, they fluff the clearing agent?s pocketbook and that of the unscrupulous customs agent. You won?t believe it, but most of the itemized charges listed above are really junk fees. Most people in the Diaspora who have shipped items to Ghana have never asked their clearing agent for an itemization of the charges.

But if you?re looking to save money ? and why wouldn?t you be? - junk fees may be a good place to negotiate with the clearing agent for a better deal. But the time to negotiate is before you hand him any money. Once you hand him your money, you?ve sealed your deal for better or worse.

Administrative Fees- Let?s start with this fee. Before you clear your car from the port, the clearing agent performs routine administrative task- navigating the bureaucracy as I call it. This includes completing the paper work, photo copying documents and courier services. The so- called services billed under the umbrella of administrative services can be concluded in a day. So why would he be charging me 2 million cedis (about $222) for two days job when the daily minimum wage in Ghana is a little over one dollar? Go figure! Inflating actual costs is just one example of junk fees and costs that get built into your clearing charges without you knowing it. This is where the regulators should come in. The government agency that sets the rates at the port should set the rules capping administrative fees at a percentage of the duty paid. This will eliminate the fraud that is a commonplace at the ports. A more egregious example is the charges for made-up things like sundry expense. According to the clearing agent, sundry expenses in my case represent the monies he will pay to customs agents to speed up the process of clearing the car from the car park at the port. Sundry expense is just euphemism for plain old bribe, pure and simple. If the government is serious about curtailing corruption within the public service, this would be a place to start. Set up a sting operation and see how many of these corrupt elements will be caught in the dragnet. In a society where the moral inhibitions over the acquisition and display of illegal wealth are nugatory, sting operation should be an effective police tool. But this is Ghana, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

I found out rather belatedly from some Legon alumni at the Customs Headquarters that administrative charges, consolidation charges, SCL charges, PBE, Sundry Expense, Professional fees all padded and you can bargain these fees down with the clearing agent. I eventually had to pay 35 million cedis to clear the car, down from the 36.02 million cedis originally charged. The sad part is others were not so lucky. A burger I met in Ghana, had to pay 85 million cedis to clear from the port, a similar car of the same age as mine and of same engine capacity. Why the huge difference? I guess his clearing agent is laughing all the way to the bank.

Regulatory Oversight

My question is has the sector minister ever asked to see what importers pay at the ports? If he knew what was going on and took action, people will not be blaming the government for their woes at Ghana?s ports. Some of the charges on my itemized bill are set by the government and can not be bargained down. The IDF (import declaration form) is currently 50,000 cedis so you can not be overcharged. You can also verify whether the duty you are quoted is accurate. You can ask for a copy of the receipt from your clearing agent. It would show exactly how much duty he paid on your behalf. Did you also know that a portion of the fee for temporary license is refundable? Yes, if you return the temporary license within ten days, you get a refund of 300,000 cedis. I know that to the ?burger?, this is nothing. But why will you give this to your clearing agent considering how much he made from your ordeal? To top it all, for still inexplicable reasons, my relatives called me to let me know that when the car was finally cleared from the port, the paperwork was in the name of somebody I didn?t know. This created problems for my relatives in Kumasi in getting a permanent license. This created another frenzy of bribery and fraudulent deals just to get a permanent license. Who is going to stop this? No one. Why? Because this is how the employees at the licensing office make their daily bread.

Before I sign off, I?m providing a quick rundown of some of the costs and fees you can expect to pay when you clear your car from the port and I dare the sector minister to come up within 90 days with an approximate range of what you might be charged for these fees.

• Administrative Charges- The sector ministry should cap this at a percentage of the duty paid so that importers are not taken for a ride at the ports.
• Duty-The government relies on duty at the ports as a vital revenue source. Even though the current rates are high, I?ve no problem with that so long as it goes into the coffers of the government. The government currently publicizes the rate in its publications and also at the CEPS website. So at least you have a ball park figure of how much to pay before you ship your car. Check the website before you leave for Ghana.
• IDF- Import Declaration Form-This is one fee your clearing agent can?t overcharge you.
• Consolidation Charges-With this fee, the clearing agent is trying to pass onto you some of the cost of doing business. When shipping cars, your shipping agent will put may be 5 cars in the container. This may be for four other individuals. The processing fee at the port is split among all the five owners of the cars. This is another area that clearing agents dupe unsuspecting ?burgers?. You can verify this from the office of the shipping company if you?re being taken to the cleaners.
• SCL Charges- the sector ministry should tell the public what this means and how much to pay. In my case I paid 600,000 cedis and still have no idea what this represents.
• PBE- The sector ministry should tell the public what this fee is for, who pays it and under what circumstances. More importantly, tell us how much to pay.
• Sundry expenses should be eliminated from clearing costs. Please educate the public that this is bribe, pure and simple and importers should not pay this.
• Professional Fees- This is the fee charged by your clearing agent for his services. To those in the US, it is analogous to your realtor?s commission when you?re buying a house. The sector ministry should cap this fee at a percentage of the total duty levied on the car. In my case, he charged me 800,000 cedis for three days work. He actually spent 8 man hours or less clearing the car. Who would want to go to medical school and be a doctor in Ghana if you can make more money in day being a clearing agent? To give you a perspective of this, while in Ghana, we footed the bill of a family member who was knocked down by a motor bike. He required an adjustment of the jaw at Komfo Anokye Hospital. This was when the medical association was on strike. The surgeon charged us 250,000 cedis.
• Temporary License- To the sector minister- please let the public know that part of this fee is refundable. By publicizing it, you will deprive the unscrupulous clearing agent of another source of cheap money. In conclusion, it is accurate to say that in 2005, things have truly changed at the ports. It is also accurate to say that even in 2005, from the moment your goods arrive at the port, you will be subjected to a farrago of fraud, illegality and secret dealings- all meant to ?help? you clear your goods from the port. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Next-Part III Concluding Article-The hepatitis and hypertension epidemic in Ghana.