Traders reject VAT

The Ghana Union Traders Association has asked the government to desist from labelling traders unscrupulous and greedy and also to stop blaming them for the recent price hikes being experienced in the country.

At a press briefing in Accra, an executive member of the Association, Mr Siaw Frimpong noted that the introduction of the VAT system has completely disorganised the entire price mechanism in Ghana and said it was not the fault of traders that prices have escalated. Rather, it is the complexity of the distribution network in the country.

Recounting the ordeals which traders were made to undergo in 1979 as scapegoats of a price control system, Mr Siaw said "we would not sit down for such a situation to re- occur". The General Secretary of the Association Mr George Kwaku Ofori stated that the VAT certificate has become a scare- crow keeping customers away from the shops.