The Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbors Authority, Michael Luguje has assured the port community and Ghanaians in general of a bright future for the ports of Ghana as management pursues initiatives that would guarantee continued success.

Speaking at this year’s GPHA Strategic Management Summit in the outskirts of Accra, he emphasized his optimism for growth, while recounting some of the challenges of past few years.

“Our last strategic meeting was 2019, where we couldn’t plan properly because we weren’t so sure. Because reefer containers were gone and a number of container volumes we are handling today, there was not certain then, whether we were going to have them. So, we couldn’t plan for equipment, we couldn’t plan for staff. Everything was uncertain,” the Director General revealed.

The Strategic Management Meeting is a major activity the leadership of the Authority undertakes to review performance and plan for the future taking into consideration critical changes in the port business.

The GPHA Boss said Management over the past few years had to work assiduously to enhance capacity and productivity for business continuity.

He revealed that as a result of the strong collaboration between management and staff, the Authority was able to cut cost and create employment.

“A major strategic reform we took, never heard of in GPHA history where we decided to tackle the problem of overtime. We tackled it, ensuring that everybody, both labor and management participated in the reasoning behind it and we have used that savings to also tackle a national crisis, which is unemployment,” the DG said.

Michael Luguje assured clients of the port of improved efficiency through key strategic reforms as well as tightened collaborations with stakeholders.

He cited that “for example, there is scheduling that is going to be done for reefer containers. But we are not going to dictate that. We are going to do that in collaboration with the freight forwarders. That way, everyone would be certain and satisfied with their schedule and that would take away the crumbling in the evenings alone at the Reefer Yard.”