Trade Ministry rejects unfair treatment claims by Nigerian traders

The Trades Ministry has rejected claims of unfair treatment by Nigerian traders in the country in the enforcement of the GIPC laws.

Nigerian traders whose shops have been locked up at the TipToe Lane here in Accra are challenging the closure of their shops by the inter-agency task force on retail trade after they began paying the required taxes and complying with other provisions in the investment laws.

But the assertion has been rejected by the trades ministry. It said the Nigerian traders have failed to honour an ultimatum to meet the requirements.

Head of Communications, Ministry of Trade Prince Boakye Boateng, told Starr News “it cannot be we’ve been insensitive If that is what they’re saying, I’ll be  disappointed because I’ll rather say they have rather been unfair to us as a regulatory body because we have given them more time than enough to the extent even the Ghanaians thought that the ministry was not even on their side or the ministry wasn’t ready to even enforce law.”

He explained “so, it’s very surprising to me for them to say that we’ve not given them enough time. If you recall as far back as December last year, these shops were locked, the president intervened and we asked that the shops be re-opened because the very law that gives GUTA the right to be the sole traders in our market, that same law requires that a certain group of people are those who can go and do law enforcement and not you, so allow us to do our work.”

“They complied, the shops were opened. Since then we have given them an opportunity to regularize the document and submit it to us for verification, that has not been done.”

Mr Boateng maintained “now, this exercise started from Abossey-Okai on Monday. Because we have never been to Abossey-Okai  for this exercise, when we went there we did not just start locking shops. We went there, we inspected the shops and we gave them notices that  in 14-days they should ensure that all their necessary documentations be complete.”

“These people at circle have been served notices for over a year now.”