The CEO of the World Trade Centre Accra, Emmanuel Doni-Kwame, has said that Ghana’s economy must be diversified to ensure that jobs are created to employ the redundant staff when the country goes paperless at the ports in September.

Mr Doni-Kwame said: “As we automate, it will get to a stage where all these people we see handling trade facilitation at the ports will reduce.

“With the automation, you sit in your office and you are able to monitor your goods as they are being loaded from another port and then monitor as it is being discharged at your port and transported to your warehouse. So what happens to all that labour? You are supposed to create jobs but in the other productive sectors. So we need to get the necessary investment so that we can start adding value to our agricultural products and so on,” added.

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His comments follow the government’s September 1, 2017, deadline by which the country will go paperless as far as transactions in the clearance chain are concerned.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia at a port efficiency conference organised by his office recently emphasised that government is committed to seeing the full automation of the processes involved in cargo clearance through a paperless transaction.

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This will result in a high level of efficiency at the ports and also prevent or reduce corruption at the ports. He added that the cost of doing business will also reduce.

Dr Bawumia also added that there was the need for a proper integration of all the systems in the port and agencies that play various roles in the clearance chain. This will help reduce the time it will take in clearing cargo from the ports.