The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) believes the government’s move to restrict the importation of some 22 selected goods into the country is uncalled-for.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, K.T. Hammond, is seeking to lay before Parliament a Legislative Instrument to limit the importation of products such as rice, poultry, sugar, tripe, among others, in a bid to enhance local production.
However, the regulation has faced opposition from the Minority Caucus in Parliament and various stakeholders in the trade industry due to the permit required for the importation of the items.
Appearing before the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, the President of GUTA, Dr. Joseph Obeng, reiterated the need for the country to attain self-sufficiency in food production before the rollout of the policy.
“We have to move slowly while we are trying to achieve self-sufficiency and do the right things. What is the threshold that qualifies a product to be restricted? Are we talking about 60 percent or 40 percent of production? We have not been given all this information and that is why we have called that instead of putting any impediment on trading, they should ban whatever they want to ban, and we will know that the product is banned but putting restrictions on us because we just want to import to meet demand is uncalled-for.”
