Monday 14th October, 2019
By Laudia Sawer, GNA
Tema, Oct 14, GNA – The Ghana Ports and
Harbour Authority (GPHA) says alleged stealing of car tyres at the Tema Port
contained in a video footage that has gone viral on social media, is a hoax.
“The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority has
noted with regret some misinformation regarding a video which is making rounds
on social media, seeking to portray that Port workers in Ghana were stealing
and changing tyres from imported cars to Ghana and attributing the act and its
perpetrators to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority”.
A press release signed by Mrs Sandra Opoku,
Director of Port, Tema indicated that such acts were condemnable and not
tolerated by the GPHA adding that efforts had been made over time to nib such
unethical practices in the bud.
Mrs Opoku stated that investigations carried
out by the GPHA on the video pointed out that the said activity did not occur
in any of its Terminals either at the Port of Tema or Takoradi.
She further noted that the landmarks and
locations identified in the video were not found in the Golden Jubilee Terminal
or Terminal 1 operated by the GPHA nor in the private terminal operated by the
Meridian Ports Services (MPS).
Most port workers, she stated, who were staff
wore reflectors with an embossment of GPHA or its logo while non-staff used
reflectors bearing their organization’s logos and names when operating in the
Ports.
“The video showed that the incident occurred
close to a tower light surrounded with stacked containers, however, almost all
the tower lights in GPHA’s Terminals are located within the container platforms
where vehicle discharge does not take place”.
She added that the mast lights at the Port of
Tema sit on a well-designed 2.5m square concrete plinth with black and yellow-painted
coats which said stressed was different from the black and yellow designed
metallic barriers identified in the said video.
The GPHA, therefore, called on the general
public to treat the accompanying narrative associating the purported video to
Ghana’s Ports as unsavoury and false “as the alleged act of stealing did not
happen at the terminals of Ghana Ports”.
GNA