'Bad' anti-foreigner GIPC law to be reviewed – MP

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism; Mr Marfo Nana Amaniampong, has described Section 27 of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Act 865, which bars foreigners from doing retail business in Ghana as a “bad” law.

According to Mr Amaniampong, the law is outmoded and should be reviewed.

The law says: ‘A person who is not a citizen or an enterprise which is not wholly-owned by a citizen, shall not invest or participate in the sale of goods or provision of services in a market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in a stall at any place’.

Members of the Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA), who recently went of shop-closing sprees at Suame, Kumasi and Opera Square, Accra; have given the government a two-week ultimatum to implement the existing laws fully or face a massive demonstration.

The association has had confrontations with, especially their Nigerian counterparts, whom they say are taking over their businesses in the retail sector.

But Mr Amaniampong told journalists that efforts are underway to change the law to cure the problem.

He said: “This issue recurs every year. Since I came to parliament, we’ve had this brush with the foreigners. We’ve signed a lot of protocols and if you sign protocols you need to observe them. It is just unfortunate to say we have this bad law in our statutes and we are reviewing the LI and I believe most likely we will do something about that particular law – the GIPC law 865 section 27 that has given them (GUTA) this energy for them to actually make this noise.

“I think in all fairness, it’s an old law. It is something we need to revisit because no person in the subregion can just take the law into his own hands and decide to sack others.”