Dear Shipping Industry,

As GSA edges towards its Golden Jubilee anniversary, I am honoured to share with you our vision for the future. With great pride and commitment, we are embarking on a journey of transformation to reposition GSA to create greater value for you, our shippers, and service providers.

We have a firm mandate to promote and protect the interests of the entire industry; to ensure that increased trade is prioritized over costly port delays and taxes, and for that, we bring an inarguable commitment and dedication to create an enabling environment for you to do your shipping business profitably and competitively.

Drawing upon my extensive leadership experience and unwavering passion for impact within any business environment I find myself in, I am committed to putting in place another firm rung in our fifty-year journey to ensure that Ghana remains the preferred shipping destination in all of Africa. Together with our esteemed shippers, service providers, and the staff of GSA, we have commenced the implementation of these fair and transparent interventions and initiatives in earnest.

Our first goal will be to ensure that all ports in Ghana embrace a multimodal shipping mindset, that is, to replace the silo mentality with a need for cargo to be transferred via multiple modes to get to its desired destination. Multimodal shipping will help us leverage multiple forms of transport to deliver goods in a timely and cost-effective manner. It will combine the best of both worlds, the rapid shipping time of air cargo, and the cost savings of land & sea.

Our second goal will be to work with all stakeholders to develop Ghana’s eastern and western corridors as the most functional and efficient hubs through which goods can flow rapidly and trade is prioritized over Customs’ bureaucracy. We aim to make the Customs processes smoother, and the links between entry and exit points safe, secure, and unobstructed. To achieve these lofty goals over the next 50 years, we will be guided by the principles of transparency, fairness, predictability, and a desire to ensure that no one in the chain loses profits due to cargo delays.

The 50th milestone serves as a reminder of our rich history and the legacy we have built together over the past five (5) decades. To leverage this rich history for bigger achievements, we are poised to give you the best shipping experiences that facilitate profitability and increased opportunities for businesses of shippers, as well as the rest of the industry to thrive.

Our focus remains the commercial success of shippers as the principals, and their service providers, be they shipping lines, freight forwarders, terminal operators, custom house agents, ground cargo operators, amongst others. Hence, we are confident that the initiatives being spearheaded will not only benefit shippers but will also empower and motivate the dedicated GSA staff to set higher standards of service delivery for our mutual good.

COVID-19 was a turning point for the global economy — but it was already on the move. The pandemic merely provided a catalyst for change. As consumer habits are evolving, high-quality products and rapid delivery are no longer mutually exclusive. A global, digitized, “always-on” economy is not confined to the future; it is already here. Logistics suppliers are fragmenting their operations in response to this shift, spreading out their processes to minimize concentration risk and the disruption caused by events like geopolitical tension or a pandemic. Technologies like blockchain can guarantee transparency and quality. The future of logistics will certainly be digitized, and will also be agile, multifunctional, and spread across geographies and truly open. At GSA, we intend to ensure that Ghana’s Shipping industry remains dynamic and digitized to keep up with progressive supply chain global trends.

As we look towards the future, rest assured that our focus remains on your success and prosperity as far as imports, export, and the transit business is concerned.
Thank you for your trust and partnership over the years. Together, we will continue to seize opportunities, chart new horizons in the dynamic world of shipping, and navigate challenges that may come along with them.

Here’s to years of success, and to a future filled with certainty and prosperity!

KWESI BAFFOUR SARPONG