The Nigerians in Diaspora Organization, Ghana Chapter have blamed Ghana’s cumbersome and expensive business registration processes for the influx of foreigners in the local retail business space.
The Organization said while Ghana has signed onto the ECOWAS protocol of the free movement of people, goods and services, its local laws make it extremely difficult for foreigners to strictly abide by them.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ldkNESG23B2QNlGHDOZ7FZOmut4luXu0″]Speaking to Citi News on the disagreement between Ghanaian and Nigerian retailers at the Suame Magazine in Kumasi, Chairman of the Organization’s Board of Trustees, Chief Calistus Elo-zieu-wa, said it is very expensive for foreigners to legally register businesses in Ghana.
“Before you can register a company here as a Nigerian solely owned by you, you will be spending 20, 000 Ghana cedis. Even some of them, their capital is not up to 20,000 Ghana cedis. Then you go and face the issue of registering with the Ghana Investment promotion centre (GIPC) and then to the Immigration to obtain your residence permit. For you to obtain your residence permit, you need to get the non-residence citizen card, which is $120 then you have to do medicals, then you pay for residence permits and other fees that you need to actually put together before you can have your residence permit.”
“In Nigeria, a Ghanaian can get a residence permit with less than 70 Ghana cedis, while in Ghana here, before a Nigerian can get a residence permit, if you register and follow all the procedures you are going to spend over 8000 Ghana cedis. The policy of the state is making it difficult for them to actually abide by these laws,” he said.
On Tuesday, a number of Nigerian traders left Suame Magazine after over 50 of their shops were closed down for engaging in retail trade contrary to Ghanaian laws.
According to Section 27 (1) of the GIPC Act, a person who is not a citizen or an enterprise which is not wholly owned by a citizen shall not invest or participate in the sale of goods or provision of services in a market, petty trading or hawking or selling of goods in a stall at any place.
The tensions also follow concerns over a growing anti-Nigeria sentiment in Ghana because of the involvement of some Nigerians in high profile crimes in Ghana.
The Nigerian High Commission in Ghana criticised the reportage of crimes involving Nigerians which it said exhibits some form of xenophobia.
But some of them returned to their businesses following assurances by the Ashanti Regional Police Command after it held meetings with the Nigerian Union of Traders Association Ghana (NUTAG).
Police have said, after a meeting with the Ghana Union of Traders’ Associations (GUTA) and NUTAG, it has been resolved that “nobody should be prevented from doing his or her business as such, all shops will be opened for business today Thursday 20th June 2019.”
