Govt to procure non-petroleum products by 70%

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and President's Special Initiatives (MOT/PSI) has called for a policy in which government would procure 70 per cent of all non-petroleum products to create a competitive market for the local manufacturing industries.

The policy, when implemented, would use both non-tariff and tariff methods to reduce importation by 50 per cent if it does not ceased completely, Ishmael Ashitey, Minister of State in-charge of industries said when he toured to some industries in Accra.

The tour was to enable the Minister to familiarise himself with the production lines and problems of these industries and find ways of solving them.

The Minister visited Golden Biscuits Ghana Limited, Strong Plastic Limited, Ghabico Biscuits Company and Kasapreko Gin Company, all on the Spintex road.

Ashitey noted that the local industry was almost on the verge of collapse and there was the need to revitalize them to grow. "We have relied so much on importation rather than manufacturing and exportation, and this is killing our local industries,' he said.

"If we really want to grow then, we must change this kind of trend." Until this is done, inferior products would always find their way onto our local markets."

He noted that the importation of foreign products had paved way for the influx of low quality products like biscuits, which had unfamiliar languages written on them and they sell at a lower price than locally produced ones.

He called on the public to be wary of such products. Ashitey said the Trade Ministry was teaming up with the Ministry of Education to train a certain calibre of personnel to suit certain local industries.

"The Ministry is also discussing with donor partners to introduce technology improvement programme to make the local industry a highly competitive one to the international market."

He pledged government's support to assist local industries, address their problem and make the country free of imported inferior products. David Mireku, Personnel Manager of Golden Biscuits, appealed to the Minister to assist them solve the problem of frequent power outage, which had affected their level of production.

Fadi El Chami, Manager of the Ghabico Biscuits, appealed to the Ministry to impose higher tariffs on imported biscuits. David Yeboah, Manager of Strong Plastic, manufactures of Gye Nyame plastic chairs, complained of some companies pirating their logo to manufacture chairs of a lower density and called on the Ghana Standard Board to come out with a standard density.

Kwabena Adjei, Managing Director of Kasapreko, urged the youth to disabuse their minds that government work was the best. He said they should rather move into self-employment to assist government create job opportunities for others