Traders are being charged $150,000 as shop rent every five years, Mr Richard Amamoo, Protocol Officer of the Ghana Union Trade Association (GUTA) has said, a situation he blames on what he describes as the failure of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) to implement the law that bars foreigners from engaging in trading reserved for locals.

“Our problem is the GIPC law which is not being implemented and as of yesterday, we were calling for it to be implemented,” Mr Amamoo told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Wednesday, 20 September.

“The government promised us to implement the law so we are praying on him to implement it,” he said.

ACT 865 section 27 (1) of the law says that: “A person who is not a citizen or an enterprise which is not wholly-owned by a citizen shall not invest or participate in the sale of goods or the provision of services in the market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in the story or at any place.”

“So, the law is clear, trading and hawking are only reserved for Ghanaians and as we speak, when you get to the market today, you’ll see a lot of non-Ghanaians [Chinese, Nigerians] there so what is happening to our law?” he wondered.

According to him, the failure by the government to implement the law has led to unfair competition against local traders. “Let’s take shop rentals; now if you want to rent a shop at Makola, UTC, Kaneshie you have to pay $150,000 for five years. Where are we going to get this money, Ghanaians? Is there any bank in Ghana that will give you a loan to go and rent a shop? Ghanaians cannot afford it.”

He said rent is soaring because the “foreigners have the money and are ready to pay and we cannot pay”.