GUTA condemn IMANI Ghana for opposing sacking of foreign traders

Even as ECOWAS Parliament lobbies government to review the law which bars foreigners from retail business until they invest 300,000 dollars, the Ghana Investment Promotion Center has hinted the threshold may soon be increased to about a million dollars.

The GIPC says the review of the law passed as far back as 1994 is long overdue.

An Inter-Agency Task-force which begun a crackdown on foreigners engaged in illegal retailing has vowed to sustain the exercise but some civil society groups fear it could have negative repercussions.

Chief Executive of the GIPC, George Aboagye however maintained the law was in the interest of the country.

He noted that though the ECOWAS Parliament was pleading for a review, government was yet to respond officially.

Meanwhile some traders at the Central business district of Accra where the enforcement exercise begun yesterday are urging the task-force to be circumspect in their operation. They fear it could lead to a situation where a few Ghanaian traders with the capacity to import goods will control the market.

But the President of the Ghana Union of Traders, George Ofori disagrees. He has condemned policy think-tank IMANI Ghana’s opposition to the enforcement of the law, stating that most of the comments made by IMANI were uninformed.