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Friday, February 26, 2021

NASS in talks with Ghana to amend trade laws for Nigerian businesses: Rep

“After our investigations, we found that it was not targeted specifically at Nigerians and the law was not a recent law.”

• February 25, 2021
Kumasi_Market
Kumasi Market (Photo Credit: Guardian Nigeria)

The National Assembly in engaging the Ghanaian authority to amend its trade laws and make it easy for Nigerians to do business in Ghana, says Rep. Yusuf Buba, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Mr. Buba, Chairman House Committee on Foreign Affairs, noted that after the engagements with the Ghanaian authority, it was discovered that the Ghanaian trade laws were not targeted at Nigerian traders alone.

He explained that following the interventions of the National Assembly, the Ghanaian authority has pledged and is working on amending its trade laws to enable Nigerian traders operate freely without harassment.

Mr. Buba said that President Nana Akufo-Addo has promised that the laws would be amended and the Ghanaian parliament was already working on that.

He further explained that law amendments were a process and not just something that would be done within days of months.

“The fact is the tariff the Ghanaian government is charging business men to pay before they can operate within their country,” Mr. Buba said.

“After our investigations, we found that it was not targeted specifically at Nigerians and the law was not a recent law.”

“It is just that the implementation of the law started fully within that period that the Nigerian shops were locked,” he added.

The lawmaker said the situation has not violated ECOWAS treaty on free movements of goods among ECOWAS countries as Nigerian traders are allowed to travel across the borders with their goods.

“It is not a problem that is beyond the Ghanaian authorities and it does not even ECOWAS intervention because ECOWAS treaty is a free movement of citizens and goods among the ECOWAS countries.

“And Nigerians are not stopped from moving into Ghana to do their business.

“The only issue now is there is a law in Ghana that says you must pay a certain amount of money before you can do certain types of business.”

(NAN)

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