Following the $1 million fee harassment, Nigerian traders in Ghana have announced that they are ready to return home, if Ghana refuses to honour the multilateral trade agreements of the Economic Community of West African States.
Last week, a Nigerian trader, whose store was forcefully locked up by the Ghanaian security officials, had recorded a video of the incident.
In the video, the trader is asked to pay a $1m registration fee. Though the victim shows the officials his business registration certificate and other documents, the enforcement team insists on shutting his store.
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The closure of scores of other Nigerian businesses by Ghanaian security agents in Abossey Okai Circle, Accra and Kumasi, Ashanti Region over non-payment of the imposed $1m fee, as well as allegations of harassment by local traders, sparked protest among Nigerian traders and resulted in diplomatic talks between the two countries.
The ECOWAS Revised Treaty, among others, states under Article 3(2)(g) and 3(2)(i) that the community shall ensure “the adoption of measures for the integration of the private sectors, particularly the creation of an enabling environment to promote small and medium scale enterprises” and “the harmonisation of national investment codes leading to the adoption of a single Community investment code.”
The President of the Nigerian Traders Union in Ghana, Chukwuemeka Nnaji, in a recent interview stated that ECOWAS nationals should be treated as Ghanaian citizens when it comes to doing business.
Nnaji said, “The Protocol of the rights of establishment say the citizen of any member-state who moves into another member-state should have the right to economic activities. You can set up a company and manage it. And the same legislation that is used for its own citizen should be applied to ECOWAS citizens.
“Therefore, if that protocol is followed, Nigerian traders in Ghana should not be asked to pay $1m, unless the same is being demanded of Ghanaian traders. Nigeria has a foreign policy when it comes to trade. But we have never applied it on Ghanaians because there is an agreement.
That shouldn’t even be a matter for discussion, but if Ghanaians think they must apply their law in its fullness, we are ready to go home because we cannot fight with them over their law.”
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