Obeng said Ghanaian traders have resolved to go all out to protest to preserve the retail trade sector.
The Ghana Union of Traders (GUTA) has berated the country’s Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, for announcing that Nigerian traders will be exempted from the $1 million (about N412 million) minimum capital under the GIPC Act, Act 865.
President of GUTA, Joseph Obeng, described the review as retrogressive and spiteful on the face of Ghana’s trading community.
Obeng said Ghanaian traders have resolved to go all out to protest to preserve the retail trade sector.
“We will resist any attempt to take away the only retail market the 1992 Constitution grants us. No attempts by the 8th Parliament through the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, to review or change the GIPC Act that ensures foreign retailers including Nigerians, pay a minimum capital of $1 million. We will never sit back and watch this happen. GUTA is prepared for a nationwide protest should this happen,” Obeng said.
A joint communique between Ghana and Nigeria on the sides of the Extraordinary ECOWAS Summit, has exempted Nigerians from the $1 million minimum capital requirement under the GIPC Act 2013, Act 865 which hitherto prevents them from trading in Ghana’s retail market.
This announcement was made by the Speaker of Parliament to Nigeria’s House of Representatives last week.
According to Bagbin, this intervention brings to end the 25-year retail impasse between Ghana and Nigeria.
“Of particular mention is the reconsideration of the 1-million-dollar minimum requirement for trading enterprises under section 28(2) of the Act. This is to facilitate regularisation of the businesses of affected Nigerian retail traders in the trade impasse. Equally commendable is the special concession to be applied to a requirement for a payment of 0.5 stamp duty. Our Parliament is working to make sure this does not apply to our brothers and sisters from Nigeria,” the Speaker of Parliament had said.