Baring any intervention from ‘above’, occupants of the Black Star Line (BSL) building at the Tema Port risk forceful eviction on Friday December 29, 2023.
This follows a Final Eviction Notice the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), owners of the edifice have gone to paste on Wednesday December 27, 2023.
The situation has placed the about forty (40) individual freight forwarding companies under the Black Star Tenants Foundation (BT Foundation) in a tight corner, seeking oxygen to survive.
A correspondence to that effect dated August 30, 2023, signed by the Director General of GPHA, Mr Michael Achagwe Luguje, was dispatched to the Chairman, B T Foundation, Tema.
It reads: Dear Sir, VACATION 0F BLACK STAR LINE BUILDING–FINAL NOTICE
We make reference to our letter DG/HQ/C3A.5/834 dated November 12, 2018, giving you FINAL NOTICE to vacate the BSL premises by December 30, 2018.
We further refer to several meetings held with you, especially the one on Monday 25th, April, 2016 at the GPHA TOWERS between GPHA, CUBAG and BT FOUNDATION, where notice was served your organization, to vacate the BSL building voluntarily by 30th August, 2016.
Again, we refer to our letter GM-EST/HQ/CUBAG/V.1/206 dated May 2017 reminding you of our earlier request to your membership to vacate the premises and your response referenced CUBAG/BTF/011/17 dated August 22, 2017, requesting for an extended stay until December 2020.
Management expected you to complete your office project by December 31, 2020 and move out of the BSL premises.
Regrettably, your members continue to occupy the premises disregarding all notices to vacate.
Your continued occupation of the premises has caused the delay of the Authority’s plan of refurbishing the BSL building for alternative use and this has resulted in a huge increase of the project cost.
Any further delay will make the project too costly to execute.
Sadly, throughout your occupation of the premises, no level of maintenance or repairs of the facility has been undertaken leaving the structure to deteriorate and run down.
This does not befit the corporate status of GPHA.
The Authority is compelled to forcefully eject your members and other occupants from the BSL building to allow for the planned refurbishment of the building for an alternative use.
We hereby give you a FINAL NOTICE to vacate the BSL building by Friday 1st December, 2023.
Failure will result in your forceful ejection.
Kindly take note that no further NOTICE will be given.
The building also houses the National Security Secretariate in Tema and the GPHA Training School.
However, information gathered by The Chronicle from the corridors of GPHA indicates that the State Security apparatus and the authority’s training facility are not affected by the final eviction notice.
The BSL building was put up in the late eighties and early nineties, for the use by the defunct national shipping line, Black Star Line.
The shipping line prior to its liquidation in late nineties was indebted to GPHA for pilotage, towage, rent, among others when the state vessels occupied commercial berths at the Tema and Takoradi ports before being scrapped.
The Ports Authority then laid hand on the Starline building to defray part of its indebtedness.
BT Foundation, currently occupies the structure on gratis and levies the members to enable it to undertake maintenance.
Stay tuned as The Chronicle brings you latest in the unfolding drama, especially as the freight forwarding companies attribute their inability to progress with work on theirs to what they referred to as not too impressive business into the country’s ports.
