Public response to ECOWAS Fair probe is poor - Caiquo

Accra (Greater Accra) 29 March "99

Public response to the Committee set up by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to look into complaints made by participants during the Second ECOWAS Trade Fair is "very discouraging," the secretary to the committee said in Accra on Monday. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Miles Caiquo, said apart from members of the National Co-ordinating Committee, which acted as representatives of the ECOWAS Secretariat who are appearing before it, no one from the public has appeared. "Most of them seem to be shying away from the committee and even though we are meeting the co-ordinating committee, we will wish to meet some members of the public and a wide range of exhibitors and companies that took part in the just ended fair", Mr Caiquo said. The Committee meets at the conference room of the Ghana Free Zones Board. Mr Caiquo said the ministry received complaints from exhibitors from Nigeria, Benin and local companies that they were cheated, maltreated and discriminated against. Local and foreign exhibitors who took part in the fair had criticised the Trade Fair authorities for the treatment meted out to them before and during the fair. A local exhibitor said she paid for a modern shell scheme stand but a wooden stand was allocated to her. An Italian exhibitor said he was relocated three times and the final place allocated to him was smaller than what he paid for.