THE government has suspended the implementation of the Ghana Conformity Assessment Programme (G-CAP) until further notice.
The conformity assessment process used to verify that imported products to Ghana are in conformity with applicable standards was to be introduced by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA).
Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah directed the GSA to hold on the G-CAP implementation until further notice.
The Minister made this statement when he met with Executives of Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) at his office.
Though the G-CAP is to focus on quality of products to check the influx of shoddy goods into the country, there was the need to deepen stakeholder consultations before implementation.
The Minister was of the view that the pre-xmas brisk season of importing, distributing and retailing was the wrong time of the year to introduce a controversial new measure into the economy.
He indicated that a final decision would be announced very early in 2015 when adequate consultation and public education would have been endured with all stakeholders.
The Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has been a strong advocate for the suspension of G-CAP.
Earlier, stating their position on the proposed implementation of the programme, which was scheduled to take off last month, the President of GUTA, George Ofori, warned that when the G-CAP was implemented, it would thwart the recovery process of the Ghanaian economy.
He added that the implementation of the programme would also trigger the increase of commodity prices in the country.
Though GSA says importers will bear the cost of the G-CAP services, Mr. Ofori and his members absolutely disagreed with that assertion, insisting: “There is no free lunch anywhere. The importers will also pass the G-CAP services cost to the consumers”.
He explained that the G-CAP, which was scheduled to take effect from 1st October, 2014, was suspended by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to allow further consultations.
Mr. Ofori stressed: “We laud the idea, but have much concern with the approach and/or the hasty manner the GSA is pushing for the implementation”.
After the launch of the programme, which was immediately followed with an aggressive publicity, he told the journalists that GUTA thoroughly studied and analysed the programme, including its cost benefit analysis and had some serious concerns about the manner of implementation, which they petitioned and Minister of Trade and Industry on the 9th of September, 2014, and copied Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism, GSA, Ghana Revenue Authority, among others.
In the Petition, members of GUTA stated that following as reasons for their rejection of the manner in which the implementation was going to be carried out.
There has not been broader consultation with relevant stakeholders as the public was made to believe; and there has also not been adequate education for better understanding of the programme, especially, to clarify certain pertinent issues regarding the new policy , such as the following below.
Open market purchasers
The GUTA President stated: “Most of the importers are informal operators. They form the majority in the import business sector, and are small to medium scale importers. About 70% of them purchase their goods from the open market of the country of import – e.g. China, Dubai, India, Turkey, etc, and consolidate the goods into mixed containers and ship them into the country”.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Ofori says that it will be impossible to capture this group of importers into such a programme, since they do not buy goods direct from the manufacturers and, therefore, will be difficult for them to acquire certificate of conformance and/or analysis from the manufacturer, hence the importance of destination inspection.
In the wake of the already harsh economic condition in the country, where exchange rate is very high, import duty is also astronomically high, with its attendant inflation, coupled with low purchasing power and so on; when they all acknowledged the fact that the government is doing everything possible to ameliorate the situation, they find it difficult to understand why GSA thinks that it is conducive for it to introduce or implement such an ambiguous policy that can only trigger agitation from the already suffocated business community, especially those in the import and export sectors of the economy .
African Eye News.com
