'Remove tarrifs on food imports'

Back page May 16/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE government has been called upon to remove tariffs on imported staples such as rice and wheat to reduce the high price pressure on local consumers.
Such a move is also expected to halt the increased smuggling of such products across the borders from neighbouring countries such as Cote d’ Ivoire, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Benin, which have reduced tariffs on such imported staples into their respective countries.
The call comes at a time when the Cabinet is seriously considering options to reduce the impact of soaring world prices on staples, such as rice and wheat, and crude oil on the people.
The Managing Director of Finatrade Group, a major rice merchant in the country, Mr Nabil Moukarzel, who made the call when he paid a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited, Mr Ibrahim Awal, gave the assurance that the company was prepared to reciprocate the move by the government by keeping the prices at reasonable levels to meet the pockets of the ordinary people.
He noted for instance that Nigeria, which used to have up to 100 per cent tariff on imported rice and wheat, had now reduced it to zero to avoid the effect of the high prices of such products on the international market on its citizens.
“Ghana can do same, and as I said earlier, we are ever ready to ensure that the reduction in the tariffs reflect positively on the prices for the people in the country,” he said.
Mr Moukarzel said since many Ghanaians including the very poor relied heavily on rice and wheat products such as bread as their daily meal, it was imperative for them to be saved the ordeal of having to bear the brunt of the worsening world prices on rice and wheat.
On the other hand, he said due to the high prices of the staples, smugglers were having a field day by brining rice and wheat into the country, through unapproved routes.
He said such a practice was not only affecting local importers, who paid taxes to improve the government’s revenue, but also denying the state huge sums in taxes meant to accelerate the development of the country.
Mr Moukarzel said in Cote d’ Ivoire, the staples were selling at 40 per cent less than Ghana, hence the smuggling into the country to compete with those imported through the right channel.
He pointed out that in spite of the fact that Finatrade imported large quantities of rice and wheat into the country, it also supported local rice farmers in many ways including the marketing of their produce.
“Let me point out that the production in the country is not enough to meet the demand so that rice import was necessary,” he added.
However, he noted that the local production could be beefed up to reduce imports and Finatrade was fully committed to any move to that effect.
To show the company’s commitment to that, Mr Moukarzel said Finatrade Foundation, the development wing of the Finatrade Group, was to start a model farm for local rice production on the campuses of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
“We are sinking into that project, GH¢60,000 as seed money and when successful, we are going to replicate that in many parts of the country as our contribution to increase local rice production in the country,” Mr Moukarzel said.
Mr Moukarzel said the company anticipated the increase in world prices for the staples and had, therefore, stocked enough to meet demand into next year.
“If we had stocked just a few and done a replacement to coincide with the soaring world prices, the prices of rice and wheat on the local market would have gone up by between 30 and 40 per cent,” he said.
He used the opportunity to commend the management of the Graphic Communications Group Limited for the role it had and continued to play in supporting democracy and freedom of speech in the country.
Mr Moukarzel made particular reference to the company’s Governance Dialogue series, which provided a platform for governance and economic experts across the country and in the sub-region to dialogue on how to sustain and improve governance and the economy to better the lives of the people.
He said his company was committed to the dialogue and would continue to lend its support to ensure that the dialogue series become one of the major programmes on the country’s calendar.
The Finatrade managing director, who was accompanied by his company’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Mr John Awuni, also congratulated the management and staff of the company on the first anniversary celebration of Graphic Nsempa, the latest addition to the company’s newspaper stable, and pledged greater support and collaboration to make it a force to reckon with as far as information dissemination and entertainment was concerned.
Mr Awal, for his part, commended the management of Finatrade for its partnership with Graphic and in particular, the support for the governance dialogue series and Graphic Nsempa.
He said the dialogue series, which also had a positive impact on business and economic growth, was important for the development and sustenance of democracy in the country.
Mr Awal said the dialogue series had come to stay as an annual programme on the company’s calendar.