Import duty cut will kill local poultry industry – Group

The decision by the government of Ghana to slash import duties on some goods including poultry products, risks collapsing the local poultry industry, the Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana has said.

The reduction in import duties followed a petition from some business people.

However, poultry farmers say they rather expect the government to put in place protectionist policies safeguard the local poultry industry from foreign competition.

The Vice-President of the Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana, Mr Napoleon Oduro, told Class News in an interview that policies of that nature have crippled the local industry over the years and wondered why they persist.

“Ghana’s poultry industry has not done well in the last three decades … some are folding up and some are still hanging in there hoping for the better, so, we all must make the effort to revive such a wonderful industry”, he said.

“It is unfortunate”, Mr Oduro noted, “that in Ghana, poultry is not doing very good”, adding: “It is doing wonderfully well in other developed economies”.

“Ghana hasn’t done very [well] and it largely has to do with chicken importation that has kind of been allowed in our country for the last three decades."

“Gradually, they have taken over the capacity that was once able to feed the citizenry of this country with local chicken. Today, we cannot even boast of up to five per cent...The industry is not doing well”, he said.