TTH tixtile, Garment and Lether Employees Union (TGLEU) of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) has appealed to the President to restore the mandate of the Anti-textile Piracy Task Force (ATPTF) to save the textile industry from total collapse.
According to the union, the inaction of the task force from December, 2013, to date had indeed allowed brisk illicit business to escalate as the woes of the local manufacturing industry deepened.
It said the President’s intervention had associated a high profile concern with the distressed textile industry, thus promoting the campaign against illegal trading.
The General Secretary of TGLEU, Mr Abraham Koomson, made the call at a press conference in Tema yesterday.
History
Mr Koomson recalled that nearly two decades after independence, the textile sub-sector was the major key player in Ghana’s industrial sector, contributing significantly to employment and growth in the economy.
The sub-sector, he said, dominated the manufacturing sector and employed about 25,000 of the labour force in Ghana, accounting for 27 per cent of total manufacturing employment and operated at about 60 per cent of plant capacity.
He said the sector had also been an important source of foreign exchange in Ghana, adding that textile exports generated $27.2 million in 1992, increasing to $179.7 million in 1994.
Mr Koomson said, however, that revenue from exports had declined consistently thereafter and by 1998, it had fallen to $3.173 million.
“The sub-sector, which was once the leader in Ghana’s industrial sector, has undergone a considerable decline over the years due largely to the over liberalised economy which makes it almost impossible for Ghana’s textile products to compete favourably with the cheap counterfeits from abroad, particularly Asia.
He said currently the four remaining textile companies -Tex Styles (GTP), Printex, ATL and GTMC - employed a total of less than three thousand workers, while locally manufactured textiles took about 20 per cent of the market share, with imported, smuggled, pirated and under invoiced ones taking about 80 per cent.
International trade regulations
Mr Koomson said under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) where goods infringed intellectual property (copy right, trademark, trade name, patent etc.), there was an obligation on the part of governments to take certain special border measures.
“In pursuance of the TRIPS Agreement, a number of countries in our sub-region such as Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria have destroyed textiles together with vehicles that were transporting them,” he said.
Suspension of operations
Mr Koomson stressed that after one of the routine operations of the ATPTF in December 2013, the traders petitioned the Presidency against the exercise, claiming their ignorance of the law and lack of know-how to differentiate between pirated and genuine textiles.
He said the President, as a result, ordered the suspension of the activities of the ATPTF and also authorised a re-sensitisation of the traders and the public to the negative impact of the illegality of such trading on the national economy and the difference between the fake and original designs.
“The nationwide sensitisation exercise undertaken by members of the ATPTF and the Textile Vetting Committee has ended satisfactorily.
“The moratorium from December 2013 to date indeed has allowed brisk illicit business to escalate as the woes of the local manufacturing industry deepen. Nevertheless, the President’s intervention has associated a high profile concern about the distressed industry thus promoting the campaign against the illegal trading.
“At this stage, we appeal to his Excellency, the President, to restore the mandate of the ATPTF to save the industry from total collapse,” Mr Koomson stated.
