Workers of four local textile companies in the country, Printex, Akosombo Textiles Limited, Juapong Textiles and GTP are currently embarking on a demonstration to register their displeasure over the influx of pirated textiles into the country.
The protest began a few minutes ago at the Obra Spot and will end at the old Hearts Park in Accra where they will submit their petition to the Minister of Trade and Industry.
The coalition had described as inadequate, the mandate of the task force to only check for pirated textiles at the country’s borders.
They want such checks to be also conducted within the various points of sales such as the markets to deter recalcitrant persons involved in the trade.
The spokesperson for the coalition, Emmanuel Shandor told Citi News that, “we are not joking with this one at all. We are meeting at Obra Spot and march all the way to Hearts of Oak Park and back. We will send a petition to the president through the Ministry of Trade.”
In 2017, the coalition threatened to stage a similar demonstration over what they said was the Trade Ministry’s inability to stop the smuggling of pirated goods onto the local markets.
According to the workers, the development has rendered local textile companies uncompetitive while they have also been compelled to lay off thousands of workers.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Carlos Ahenkorah is appealing for calm as various meetings have been scheduled to resolve the matter.
“…we think that the demonstration is a bit premature. We have sat down on countless times to educate them to let them understand why we think we need to do this gradually. We can’t get go to the market and do what we used to do previously. We have been to the marketplace ever since when we were set up in 2010 and the results are the same. Why do you want us to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result?
The government in August 2010 introduced a task force to rid the markets of pirated goods.
Since then, over 10,000 pirated Ghanaian textiles have been seized and destroyed.
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Photos: Kwame Adjaho
By: Jonas Nyabor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana