Business, trade associations urged to use dialogue to resolve issues

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, has urged businesses and trade associations to use dialogue and negotiations to resolve issues with government, regulators and other policy makers involved in their business operations.

This, he said, was in line with the tenets of the country's democratic dispensation and demands of the 21st century, which called for innovative partnership models in policy engagement.

Otumfuo Osei-Tutu said this in an address read for him at the inauguration of the Trucks and Spare Parts Importers Association (TRUSPIA) in Kumasi.

He said building partnerships and cooperation for policy and compliance instead of antagonism, mistrust and extortions, were crucial to ensuring the state derived the required resources from industry to promote national development.

He commended the TRUSPIA for the initiative to become a formidable force to gain the necessary recognition and influence policies that would be beneficial to their business operations.

The Asantehene said choosing the path of partnership with the Government, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority and all relevant regulatory and enforcement agencies to build cooperation and compliance to improve the trucks and spare parts trade was a good step by the Association's leadership.

He appealed to the Government and other key stakeholders in the truck and spare parts trade to respond favourably to ensure a win-win situation to define a new regime of cooperation as partners in national development.

Mr Adade Mensah, the Chairman of the Association, said the trucks and spare parts industry, aside the revenues and employment generated in the country, was the pivot of the transport sector, which also drove all other sectors of the Ghanaian economy.

He said the inauguration of the Association signalled a new relationship with the state, regulators and enforcement agencies as it shifted its policy philosophy from that of confrontational to cooperation, dialogue and partnerships with policy makers and other relevant agencies.

Mr Mensah said the Association was going to institute an annual policy week to dialogue with all relevant government agencies involved in their business operations on all issues that might be affecting their business operations.

It would also be used as a platform to engage political parties to interact and factor into their manifestoes issues confronting businesses in the trucks and spare parts industry.