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| Textiles at the Makola Market: PIX: Mamadou Edrisa Njie/April2010 |
Dealers in the Ghanaian local textile industry have made a
strong case for government to implement laws regarding the importation of
textile products from other countries especially China.
This has become necessary because the dealers claim that the
imported textiles were cheap, the local textiles were not selling and that was
throwing most of them out of their businesses.
The dealers who were mostly women further indicated that the
imported textiles appeared in the designs and logos of the local textile
therefore making it difficult for the public to differentiate between the local
and imported ones.
This issue was raised when a group of West African
journalists, attending a training on “The Media’s Role in Conflict
Transformation and Peace Building” visited the Makola Market to seek views of
traders on the state of the local textile industry in Ghana.
Mrs. Lydia Baah Sackey, a local textile dealer, told the
group that she had been dealing in GTP and ATL, some of the brands of the local
textiles for many years but of late the business had gone down because of the
influx of the cheap imported textiles.
She noted that most customers went for the imported textiles
mainly from China, since the local textile designs logos had been pirated and
therefore appeared like a local textile.
Mrs. Sackey emphasized the need for government to implement
the laws regarding textile importation and also called for education on
patriotism to ensure that the public purchased the local textiles to sustain
the industry.
The team of journalist observed at the textiles enclave at
the Makola market that, there were more imported textiles on display than the
locally produced textiles.
Some of the dealers in the imported textiles trade in an
interview told the team that imported textiles sold faster than the local ones
because of its lower prices.
The general secretary of the Textiles, Garments and Leather
Employees Union (TGLEU), Mr. Abraham Koomson, in a briefing said the influx of
the imported textiles had almost collapsed the local industry citing the drop
of 25,000 employees in 1975 to 2,500 workforce in 2012.
He said although the TGLEU who had been championing the
cause of the local textile industry was not against the importation of other
textiles, but wanted the right thing to be done such as in the case of pirating
designs and logos from the local textiles.
Mr. Koomson indicated that for many economical reasons
including energy and labour cost, the imported textiles were produced at lower
cost coupled with the many lapses in the payment of import and customs taxes.
Author: Mafugi Ceesay, from Accra
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