Ghana – Stop foreigners in retail business or face our wrath – GUTA

Members of the Ashanti Regional branch of the Ghana Traders Union Association (GUTA), have given the government a 72-hour ultimatum to address issues concerning the influx of foreigners engaging in retail businesses in the country or face their wrath.

The association on Tuesday combed some principal streets in the region to reiterate their concerns.

According to the leadership of the Association, consistent calls to authorities to address their concerns have been unsuccessful so far hence their threat according to report by citifmonline.com.

the Ashanti Regional Secretary of GUTA, Ali Mohammed Ahmed called on government to act fast in a bid to save their businesses from unfair competition from foreigners.

“They [foreigners] are collecting all retail businesses in Ghana. Some Chinese are roasting plantain, others are selling sachet water. What of those our youth, brothers, children who leave school and there is no work? At the moment there is a freeze on employment, how do we survive? Crime is the only answer and we don’t want it to be so.”

“If a foreigner wants to come and invest in Ghana, he has to do either wholesaling or manufacturing. And according to the law he/she should have between $200,000 to $1 million because he/she is coming to invest as an investor. But what do we see; they even sell in containers, trucks and vehicles.”

Mr. Ahmed also complained that all efforts to get authorities to bring sanity in the sector in the Region have proved futile

“We have exhausted all diplomatic avenues including speaking with the Regional Minister, KMA boss and we’ve even gone to see the Trade Minister, but we’ve seen no positive results. So if we should sit back, in fact the whole nation will be taken over by foreigners. We’ve presented a number of petitions; this is the last petition we are sending. Most of the foreigners do not even pay taxes anyway,” he fumed.

The National President of GUTA, Barima Dr Ofori Ameyaw I, in an interview with BBC Hausa Fahd Adam, accused  the government of Ghana not doing enough to regulate and monitor the activities of foreigners in the country, Dr Ofori Ameyaw said every country has it’s own investment laws that attract foreigners and Ghana is no exceptional, he added Ghana has the best laws but the implementation becomes a challenge.

“People in authority who are paid by the tax payers money to make sure the laws works don’t do their core functions as the powers that be, the laws are there which are promulgated by our parliament so the institutions who are responsible for those laws must make sure that they implement the law to the latter that is what we are lacking as a country and I can say and other African Countries.

GUTA is not against business investors in Ghana he added, the association (GUTA) is focused to fight against quark foreign business. We have witness a good number of foreign investors who have contributed tremendously to the countries development using the right channel.

He said it is a worry for a population of over 1.4 billion descending on Ghana with estimated of 24 million.

Traders are being charged $100,000 as shop rent every five years he said, a situation the association (GUTA ) blames on what it describe as the failure of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) to implement the law that bars foreigners from engaging in trading reserved for locals”.

The Law

ACT 865 section 27 (1) of the law says that: “A person who is not a citizen or an enterprise which is not wholly-owned by a citizen shall not invest or participate in the sale of goods or the provision of services in the market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in the story or at any place.”

Trading and hawking are only reserved for Ghanaians and as we speak, when you get to the market today, you’ll see a lot of non-Ghanaians [Chinese, Nigerians] there so what is happening to our law? He asked.

By: Fernilnews.com/Additional files citifmonline.com