The Greater Accra Regional Chairperson for Ghana Union of Traders Association, (GUTA) Mr David Kojo Amoateng, has described Nigeria traders in Ghana as not law abiding citizens.
At Kwame Nkruma Cirlce in the Greater Accra Region yesterday, GUTA has locked up about 600 retail shops belonging to foreigners including Nigerians.
According to Mr. David Kojo Amoateng, the closed shops were shops for both Nigerian and other foreign nationals.
“…six nationalities shops were closed but, only Nigerians brought land guards to beat up Ghanaians while other nationalities did not reiterate,” he said.
By the Ghanaian law, foreigners must not engage in retail businesses in Ghana. In other words, retail business in Ghana is for only Ghanaian nationals.
The GUTA Regional Chairperson has accused the Ghana Police Service as ineffective, hence called for it dissolution since it is failing to enforce the laws on the non law abiding foreigners.
‘The injustice is the cause of the instant justice, if our leaders enforce the law and punish the culprit; people would not take the law into their own hands and do what they like.”
“Once the law is in our favor we will fight till the end,” Mr. Amoateng threatened.
The Police have arrested nine persons following clashes between some Ghanaian and Nigerian traders at Tip Toe Lane, near the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange in the Greater Accra Region.
Persons arrested includes five Nigerians and four Ghanaians.
The rioters pelted the police personnel who had visited the scene to restore calm with stones and caused damage to shops and also smashed the rear windscreen of a police vehicle.
According to the Daily Graphic publication on Tuesday, a day after the clash, trading activities had come to a halt when its visited the scene with about 54 shops, mainly mobile phone retail shops, locked up.
Some of the affected places apart from Tip Toe lane included the Odo Rice lane and the Soldier Bar area.
The clash happened after the leadership of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) locked up some shops belonging to foreigners in the area as part of efforts to rid the Ghanaian market of foreign traders engaged in retail trade, in consonance with the Ghana Investment Promotion Act Centre Act, 2013 (Act 865).
The foreigners, whose shops were locked, are mainly Nigerians who belong to the Nigerian Union of Traders Association Ghana (NUTAG).
It took a combined team of police personnel from the Nima Divisional Police Command and the Operations Unit of the Accra Regional Police Command to restore calm.
But speaking to David kojo on the issue on okay FM monitored by Rite FM, he said, “Nigerians are not law abiding people, not only their shops were closed yet they were the only people who brought land guards to beat up Ghanaian traders.”
Source: ritefmonline.org/Akusa Mavis Atteh
