On Friday 31st July 2026, the management of the Sierra Leone Ports and Harbours Authority (SLPHA) convened a meeting to address recent concerns expressed by importers, who called on government to speed up their clearance process.
The meeting, which was chaired by the Director of Operations and Monitoring of the SLPHA, Director Foday Manso Koroma, brought together representatives from the Importers Welfare Association, National Revenue Authority (NRA) Customs, Freetown Terminal Limited (FTL), Integrated Trade Service (ITS), Sierra Leone Customs Brokers Union (SLCBU), and Indigenous Transport Owners Association (ITOA).
In his opening remarks, Director Koroma described the engagement as a family dialogue aimed at figuring out the bottlenecks and proffering possible solutions to address them. He cautioned that blame shifting or squarely pointing fingers at the SLPHA should be avoided, as the Authority is not responsible for the operational bottlenecks in the clearance process.
During the deliberations, representatives of the Importers Welfare Association voiced the issues of delay in getting their goods out of the port, the payment of demurrage fees, high cost of payment for haulage trucks, preferential treatment being given to other containers and consignees, challenge in accessing the port, among other concerns. The Importers Association emphasized that some importers spend months with clearing and forwarding agents before securing their goods, which they stressed is not good for business.
In his response to some of the concerns, Director Koroma maintained that the delay in the clearance of goods can be attributed to both natural and human causes. He highlighted the current capacity of the port as a natural cause for which the current space cannot accommodate the number of containers. He however, pointed out the human factors, which are created due to the attitude of people towards work.
In his contribution, the representative from the NRA Customs drew importers attention to the pre-clearance, clearance and post clearance process, noting that importers should pay more attention to the pre-clearance stage, which will make things easy for them to get their goods on time.
The Customs rep also advised importers to always ensure that they have correct invoices and to declare the correct items inside their containers.
“All of these blames are not on the SLPHA. If brokers come early to work, we can make progress; but brokers don’t come on time. Immediately you are done with your payment, bring the receipt so that we can generate the wish list,” the Customs representative stated.
The meeting concluded with a mutual agreement among the stakeholders operating in the port and the SLPHA to foster stronger collaboration to ease operations in the port. The SLPHA committed to evaluating the issues raised and ensure further engagement with the parties.
The Importers Welfare Association thanked the management and leadership of the SLPHA for creating the enabling environment for the dialogue and for making them understand how things work within the port.