Poverty forces Ghanaians to buy cheap foreign products

Ho, Sept. 29, GNA - Mr Emmanuel Akoto, a consultant in small-scale business development on Thursday said poverty rather than desire was responsible for the mad rush by Ghanaians for imported goods. He said one needed an incomparable sense of patriotism to opt for a Ghanaian product that was more costly than a similar product of foreign origin.

Mr Akoto was addressing a forum organised by the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition (GTLC) for representatives of small-scale industrialists, farming groups, non-governmental organisations and district assemblies.

He said it was not rational for the poor to buy expensive but sometimes more durable Ghanaian made wares, when they could buy the same goods at cheaper prices even though of foreign origin. Mr Akoto said trade liberalisation could not be a substitute for good trade policy and that apart from economic implications that policy had made cheap foods so widespread that Ghanaians now suffer from "hard to manage" diseases.

The GTLC is an organisation made up of 60 NGOs and farmer based groups, which had been advocating for fair trade policies. Mr Alexander Alor, Regional Focal Person of the Coalition said the forum was to sensitise the public against the impeding Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), a follow-up to the Lome Convention and the Cotonou Agreements on trade and economic cooperation reached by African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the European Union (EU).

He said the supposed dropping or reduction of tariffs on most European goods to ACP countries in return for a freer access of ACP countries to European markets, which was to be guaranteed by the EPAs, was a ruse.

Mr Alor said European goods including processed farm produce would only swamp ACP markets, taking farmers and industries in ACP countries out of business.

Togbe Ahoney II, a Public Servant, cautioned that further liberalization could further lower the living standards of the 66 per cent of Ghanaians in agriculture.

He said already the easy availability of cheap chicken parts was collapsing the poultry industry in Ghana and called on government to build structures to support rice and tomato production and processing in Ghana before the market was completely taken over by foreign imports. Mr Vital Augustine Agbley, Volta Regional Trade Officer, expressed regret that developed countries were maintaining protective policies that made goods of developing countries uncompetitive on their markets. 28 Sep. 06