Accusations that Abena Osei-office Asare’s is upsetting customers at Ghana’s ports, according to the deputy finance minister, are unfounded.
She was responding to a debate on Asempa FM in Accra that seemed to imply that her Ministry had declined to sign letters returning some containers to their individual importers.
Osei-Asare thinks that the Ministry’s new initiatives to improve openness in the port restoration process are mostly to blame for the difficulties that the majority of clients are currently experiencing.
While urging the public to disregard such allegations she affirmed that neither she nor any officer at the Finance Ministry can be cited for any wrongdoing.
Read the Minister’s full statement below:
HON DEP. MINISTER SETS THE RECORDS STRAIGHT on EKO SII SEN – 27th October 2022
My attention has been drawn to a discussion on your radio programme, Eko Sii Sen, in which my name was mentioned as having refused to sign letters restoring some containers to their importers. The manner in which my name was mentioned sought to impute some wrongdoing on my part in this regard.
I write to state for your and your listeners’ benefit that while I appreciate the anxiety that people have over the new measures introduced by the Ministry of Finance to ensure transparency in the restoration process of items that have stayed beyond their stipulated time at the ports, there is nothing untoward and the officials at the Finance Ministry are available to explain and answer queries both general and particular relating to the said process.
In the meantime, I say that, I HAVE NOT FAILED, REFUSED, OR NEGLECTED TO SIGN ANY LETTER WHICH AFTER HAVING GONE THROUGH THE WHOLE PROCESS HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY OFFICE
Abena Osei-Asare (MP)
Deputy Finance Minister