Mr. Kofi Essuman, Co-ordinator of Anti-Counterfeiting and Anti-Piracy Campaign, on Friday called on the government to review or update existing laws on counterfeiting and piracy or enact new ones to curb the menace.
He suggested that these new laws should include definitions of counterfeiting and piracy as criminal offences and provide increased penalties, search warrants, seizure and destruction of counterfeit and pirated goods.
Mr Essuman, addressing an Anti-Counterfeiting and Anti-Piracy Campaign workshop in Accra, said counterfeiting affected both economic growth and the health of consumers in general.
The two-day capacity building workshop is being organized by the Institute of Packaging in collaboration with Coalition against Counterfeiting and Illicit Trade and the Ministry of trade and Industry and Presidential Initiative.
Mr. Essuman said while countries lost billions of dollars through copyright piracy many people have lost their lives from taking counterfeit drugs worldwide between 1990 and January 2009.
He said according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance's estimate trade loses due to copyright piracy in 68 selected countries in 2005 amounted to 15.8 billion dollars.
"Counterfeiting thus harms the real economy with direct impact on legitimate businesses and employees and long-term consequences to economic development and also discourages investments, research and development, creativity and hinders brand and technology innovations."
Mr. Essuman said most counterfeit products manufactured outside Ghana were suspected to be smuggled into the country through unapproved border crossings thereby affecting tax revenue, corporate investment and well-being of the consumers.
He said many industries had collapsed in West Africa due to counterfeiting, piracy and infringement of intellectual property rights. He cited the West African textile industry, which used to be one of the largest employers of labour, which was on the verge of collapse.
"Employment has shrunk from 250,000 in 1985 to below 40,000 today largely due to faking and counterfeiting of African textile manufacturers' designs and trademarks," he added.
He said to effectively enforce intellectual property crimes there was the need for training and skills-building across the requisite range of enforcement and regulatory agencies.
Earlier, over 30 students from some Senior High Schools were given awards for participating in the 2009 National Anti-Counterfeit Campaign Competition.
Master Nathan Andre Melcom, a student from Tema Senior High School and Master Isaac Koney of Presbyterian Senior High School emerged winners in the Essay and Art Competitions respectively. They each took home a certificate, cash voucher of GH¢150 and a plaque for their school.
Miss Emelia Dede Quist from Ebenezer Senior High
and Cobbiah Jepheta from GHANATA were second in the essay and art competitions respectively and had a certificate, a cash voucher of GH¢100 and a plaque each for their schools.
The third position went to Abigail Adu Pokuwaa and Hamid Nortey who each collected a certificate, a cash voucher of GH¢50 and a plaque for their schools.