The outgoing Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, yesterday inaugurated a 24-member inter-agency task force on foreign retail trade in the country with a call on members to exercise their duties with decorum.
He expressed the hope that the activities and operations of the task force would not visit chaos on the market and urged the members to do their work objectively such that business transacted would be in accordance with the laws of the country.
Mr Haruna said the task force would ensure that traders did not only meet the requirements of the trade laws but also were registered not just with the Registrar General’s Department but also with the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre (GIPC).
Composition of task force
Members of the task force include representatives from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ghana Revenue Authority (Customs and Domestic Division), Social Security and National Insurance Trust and the Ghana Police Service.
Others are the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Registrar General’s Department, Ghana Union of Traders Association, Ghana Immigration Service and an official from the Office of the National Security Co-ordinator.
Duties of task force
Mr Iddrisu noted that members would ensure that business activities in general and retail trade in particular, were the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians.
“Your duty is to politely identify those engaged in these illegal activities per Act 865 and, together with National Security and security agencies who are part of this task force, appreciate why the person is in the market and then spell out the appropriate sanctions to that person,” he said.
Mr Iddrisu encouraged members of the task force to, as a matter of urgency, design their own strategies and tactics to enter the market and accordingly report back through the Chief Director of the ministry on some of the findings from the market.
The Chief Superintendent of the Ghana Police Service, Naa Hamza Yakubu, urged members of GUTA to be less sensitive with issues as the members of the task force embarked on their exercise.
The President of GUTA, Mr George Kweku Ofori, expressed the hope that the new task force would be able to tackle the issues of foreign retail trade.
He said one of the many challenges confronting the association was the issue of Ghanaians fronting for foreigners, and that made it difficult for the task force, as well as the association, to meet their objectives.