They are now urging inspection agencies to be extra-vigilant to ensure that all rice imported into the country conformed to standards.

The Vice President, Ghana-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce, Mr Michael Ntim-Addo and Mr John Owusu told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on the sidelines of the Ghana-Vietnam business forum in Accra.

The forum was held as part of a trade and investment visit by a Vietnamese delegation to explore opportunities in rice farming, processing, storage, marketing and distribution.

The trip was organised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Ghana-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Treat ban with caution

Mr Ntim-Addo said inspection agencies must treat the lifting of the ban with caution to prevent unscrupulous importers from importing substandard rice onto the Ghanaian market.

“The ban was put in place basically to check the quality of rice that comes into the system because of smuggling, so if the ban is lifted, then the Food and Drugs Authority, the Ghana Standard Authority and other agencies must collaborate to ensure rice imported conformed to standard,”  he said.

The vice president indicated that on average, Ghana imported about 400,000 metric tonnes of rice yearly which is equivalent of US$300 million.

He said government policy was to increase local production of rice and reduce importation so as to improve the country’s balance of trade.

Mr Ntim-Addo said the Ghana-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce would continue to work as the referee for businesses that would want to come together to move the rice trade and investment forward and create more jobs.

Disappointment

For his part, Mr Owusu also expressed disappointment in the Ministry of Trade and Industry for lifting the ban on the inland importation of rice into the country.

He said the decision  by government was very surprising since persons who did inland importation did so illegally.

According to him, those into the inland importation of rice usually used the Elubo, Sampa and Nkrankwanta borders and as such did not pay tax unlike those who used the ports and paid taxes to the government.

He said the Food and Drugs Authority would not be able to check whether the rice was of good quality and healthy for consumption since they had no personnel at the borders to do the inspection.

The importer explained further that the move would also escalate  smuggling into the country since the Ivorian taxes were lower than taxes collected in Ghana.

He said although some importers preferred bringing in goods through the Tema and Takoradi ports, such moves would influence such importers to use the borders.

Lifting of ban

The disagreement follows the lifting of a ban placed on inland importation of rice by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism that importers of rice into Ghana can now do so through the land borders from August this year.

The ban, which has been in force for about three years now, prevented the importation of rice into the country through the Elubo, Sampa and Nkrankwanta borders in the Wesrwen.

The move was to curb the numerous unfair trade practices such as evasion of import duties and other taxes, under-invoicing, infringement of trademarks and smuggling.