President failed to address our main concerns – GUTA

The umbrella body of traders, the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), has expressed some mixed feelings about President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's measures to fix the economic crisis being experienced by Ghanaians. According to GUTA, the president, in his address to the nation on Sunday, October 30, 2022, failed to address the main concerns of traders in the country. The Vice President of GUTA, Mr Clement Boateng, was quick to say some of the measures by the president, particularly the denial of haircuts on investments, were heartwarming. Mr Boateng made these statements while reacting to the president's address in an interview with Emmanuel Quarshie (The Hitman) on Accra100.5FM's morning show Ghana Yensom on Monday, October 31, 2022. According to him, the main concern of GUTA was the act of pegging import duties at the port to the dollar. He said every week, import duties at the ports are increased because of the cedi's depreciation. "We are disappointed in the president for failing to address this significant concern of members of GUTA. "You go to the port and clear goods at GHS100,000, and you go there next week to clear the same goods, the import duty has jumped to GHS150,000," he lamented. He maintained this worrying phenomenon needed to have featured in the president's address to the nation. He added that this contributed to the rising cost of goods and services in the country. He said GUTA would continue to push for many of these issues to be addressed by the government, especially the matters GUTA agreed on in the meeting with the president when they embarked on the sit-down strike. He revealed that the leadership of the association will be meeting today to review the president's address and chart the way forward. In the same vein, Mr Daniel Osabutey, a senior lecturer at the Accra Technical University's (ATU) business department, called on the government to stop quoting import duties in dollars. According to him, our attitudes as Ghanaians have contributed to the loss of confidence in the cedi. We need to respect our currency, he said.