Nigeria traders must pay $1m fee, Ghana insists
The Ghanaian Ministry of Trades has insisted that Nigerian traders must pay taxes and other fees imposed on them.
It rejected claims of unfair treatment by the traders in the enforcement of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council regulations.
This is happening despite the intervention of the presidents of Ghana and Nigeria through the Economic Community of West African States.
A Nigerian trader whose shop was locked up by the Ghanaian security officials had recorded a video of the incident in which they asked him to pay $1m registration fee.
The victim had shown the officials his business registration certificate and other documents but the enforcement team shut his shop.
Speaking on the incident on a Ghanaian radio station, Starr FM, the Head of Communications, Ministry of Trade, Prince Boakye Boateng, said Nigerian traders failed to honour an ultimatum to meet the requirements.
He said, “It cannot be that 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 than enough time to the extent that even the Ghanaians thought that the ministry was not ready to enforce the law.”
He recalled that the shops were locked last December and later re-opened following the intervention of President Nana Akufo-Ado.
According to him, the traders complied but have not regularised their documents for verification.
Boateng explained that the law being enforced gave the Ghana Union of Traders Association the right to be the sole traders in the local market.
The spokesman, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, said the Nigerian mission in Accra, had yet to send a formal report on the harassment of the traders to the ministry.
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