Economist Kwame Pianim has chided members of the Ghana Union of Traders Association GUTA for taking the law into their own hands and locking up the shops of foreigners in retail trade.
According to him the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) must conduct an independent investigation at the various market centres to find out the merit of the issues as described by the members of GUTA.
Speaking on the Point Blank segment on Eyewitness News, he called on GIPC to put in place measures to curb the act of GUTA members.
“GUTA now is becoming powerful that they think they can go to the shops and start terrorizing so called foreigners who are doing retailing. GIPC is the one who licenses people who want to do retailing. They have to have a certain minimum capital. If you let GUTA members start doing this, you are attracting criminal elements who will start attacking foreigners. Unfortunately, the foreigners who are easy targets are Nigerians and Ghana, we are not moving anywhere without ECOWAS. We are a small economy with 30 million people as compared to ECOWAS who are about 300 to 400 million. We don’t need to let people do this. Maybe GIPC should find people to go into the market and find out if somebody is trading contrary to their rules. We are a law-abiding people. We should not allow people to take the law into their own hands,” he said.
Background
Earlier this year, after Nigeria closed its frontiers to stop the smuggling of products from its neighbouring West African states into the country, GUTA constantly asked authorities to strictly enforce Ghana’s laws banning foreigners from engaging in retail trade.
They attributed the collapse of the businesses of some of their members to the invasion of foreigners especially Nigerians, in the retail sub-sector.
According to them, the activities of the foreigners breach the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre’s Act (Act 865).
Members of the union say that the government has not fulfilled its promise of ridding the market of such traders despite several appeals.
The Greater Accra chapter of GUTA consequently locked up several shops at Tip Toe Lane belonging to foreigners.
‘Don’t take the law into your own hands’ – Akufo-Addo to GUTA
Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged the leadership and membership of GUTA not to take the law into their own hands in dealing with traders from Nigeria and other nationalities engaged in retail trade.
In a meeting with the leadership of GUTA on Tuesday, 3rd December 2019, the President stated that “undoubtedly, the law favours GUTA’s position but, I will appeal that we live in a country where the rule of law works.”
He continued, “It is the State that interprets how the laws should be applied. People cannot take the law into their own hands and purportedly seek to enforce it. If we tread on that line, Ghana will become ungovernable.”