‘Protect Ghanaian businesses’

STORY: ANTHONY KWESI COOMSON

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Subin Constituency in the Ashanti region, Isaac Osei, has called on government to save Ghanaian industries by employing protective measures such as enacting an anti-dumping law to help them grow.

According to him, many Ghanaian businesses have folded up because they were unable to compete with foreign companies whose price products are relatively cheaper, citing the case of some of the local textile industries in the country.

Speaking to Today in Parliament, Hon. Osei expressed concern at the rate at which most indigenous Ghanaian businesses were being deprived of revenue due to unorthodox methods employed by foreign companies which he said often dump their products in the country.

He indicated that many of the Ghanaian businesses are confronted with a lot of challenges. Some of these challenges, he said, include high tariffs and erratic power and water supply.

Hon Osei, who is also the NPP ranking member on Trade and Industry, bemoaned the situation where Nigerians were gradually taking over the transport industry, adding that some of these Nigerian drivers have suspicious characters which pose threat to the country’s security.

“We have to develop an enforcement capacity to ensure that business areas reserved for Ghanaians are protected,” he said.

Continuing, he suggested that an anti-dumping law should be enacted to impose duties on finished products dumped unto the Ghanaian markets to deter other foreign companies who have cultivated the habit of flooding the country’s market with their products.

The Subin MP also stressed the need for a national consensus on how profits which will be accrued from the oil and gas revenue should be utilized.