The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has argued that the government’s move to restrict the importation of some 22 selected goods into the country is uncalled for.
President of GUTA Dr. Joseph Obeng believes Ghana ought to attain self-sufficiency in food production before the rollout of the policy.
He made the argument when he appeared before the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Parliament on Tuesday.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, K.T. Hammond, is seeking to lay before Parliament a Legislative Instrument to limit the importation of 22 products including rice, poultry, sugar, tripe popularly known as ‘yemuadie’ among others.
The Minister says the L. I seek to enhance local production.
But GUTA’s president thinks otherwise saying the government has not engaged stakeholders or provided detailed information on the L.I.
“We have to move slowly while we are trying to achieve self-sufficiency and do the right things. What is the threshold that qualifies a product to be restricted? Are we talking about 60 percent or 40 percent of production? We have not been given all this information and that is why we have called that instead of putting any impediment on trading, they should ban whatever they want to ban, and we will know that the product is banned but putting restrictions on us because we just want to import to meet demand is uncalled-for.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
