The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Trade, Industry and Tourism Committee, Yussif Sulemana, has chided the committee he is a member of for doing little to address the impasse between Ghanaian traders and their Nigerian counterparts.
He said although the committee met with the various stakeholders earlier and scheduled to meet them individually according to a drawn schedule, that has not been done yet.
He said he believed that since the committee was tasked to look into the matter, it must go all out and act promptly to find an amicable solution to the problem.
“This issue was referred to the Trade and Industry Committee and we decided to hold a meeting where to get all the stakeholders involved. All the relevant ministries were invited, we sat down and scheduled a timetable where we were supposed to meet all of them one after the other so that we are able to get to the bottom of the issue. For some time now we’ve not been able to meet,” he lamented.
“My committee must sit up. We are dilly-dallying about it. I am not happy about this. It behoves on him the Chairman of the Committee to rise to the occasion. You cannot have the situation where people are taking the laws into their hands, taking the law into their hands, locking other people’ shops. If they have broken the law, there are institutions in this country that are supposed to take them on, not individuals,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Union of Traders’ Association (GUTA) together with the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association, will later today [Wednesday] hold a press conference to address the outstanding issues.
The development is premised on a violent action on Monday that saw some Nigerian-owned shops at Opera Square in Accra, being forcibly locked up by Ghanaian traders in a bid to get them out of the space solely reserved for locals by law.
Last month, the Nigeria Union of Traders Association, Ghana (NUTAG) accused the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) of terrorizing Nigerian traders in Ghana.
The group warned that the antagonism of GUTA is likely to degenerate if not immediately checked.
GUTA had descended on the Nigerian traders in Ghana for trading in the local retail market space.
There were clashes between Ghanaian and Nigerian traders at the Suame Magazine in Kumasi in june 2019 resulting in the destruction of the property whereas, in Accra, the Abossey Okai Spare Parts Dealers gave Government a two-week ultimatum to evict foreigners from the retail space or face their wrath that same month.