The Traders Advocacy Group Ghana is asking its members to disregard directives by the Ghana Union of Traders Associations (GUTA) to close their shops as a measure to drum home their displeasure with the government over the current economic situation.
GUTA has instructed its members to act on the 29th of August in a bid to get the attention of the government on their concerns.
But TAGG believes the move is counterproductive as it would further worsen the plight of the trading community.
Secretary of TAGG, Nana Poku stressed that such a move would only drive customers of local traders to the multinational businesses that already have a larger market share.
“There is no way to sugarcoat the heavy financial crisis facing the trading community especially in the wake of the unbridled shortfall of the Ghana Cedi against the dollar which has brought untold hardship to our members. We believe that the Ministry of trade is partly to blame for failing to develop an effective policy framework to help solve such trade issues in the country but the purpose of this press conference is not to apportion blame but to urge our members to reject and desist from following the harmful directive of some other trade unions”.
Nana Poku went on to explain why GUTA’s directive will rather hurt local businesses by driving customers to other foreign owned businesses who are already “sniffing life out of local businesses”.
