Lithium Batteries as Cargo Pose an Ever Present Danger to Carriers and Shippers Alike
Freight Forwarders Warned to Take Suitable Precautions
WORLDWIDE – For well over a decade we have written of the dangers of the carriage of lithium batteries, particularly as air cargo. Now comes a useful reminder to freight forwarders and the like of the steps necessary to ensure the safe transport of something which now permeates much of the technology we rely on.
Nothing illustrates the problems better than the Boeing Dreamliner situation, a plane entirely dependent on lithium technology, in which the entire fleet had to be grounded when the batteries started smoking on some aircraft. The, some might say all too simple solution? Put them in a metal box from where no fire could spread.
Opuni Trial: COCOBOD bought $64.5m fertiliser from Agricult; Witness
The Law Courts Complex in Accra
The seventh prosecution witness (PW7), Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Prempeh Mercer, has told an Accra High that Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), between 2014 and 2016, procured fertiliser from Agricult Ghana Limited worth US$64.5 million.
The witness testified that COCOBOD made these procurement when the product, Lithovit Foliar Fertiliser, had not fully met the testing requirement of the Cocoa Research Institute (CRIG).
According to him, the Board acted on the instruction of its then Chief Executive Officer, Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni, who ordered CRIG to issue a certificate to Agricult Ghana Limited, despite testing Lithovit Foliar Fertiliser for just six months.