Automobile dealers kick against Customs Amendment Bill

The Automobile Dealers Union Ghana (ADUG) has kicked against moves by the government to ban the importation of second-hand and salvaged vehicles into the country.

Government has completed the Customs Amendment Bill, which, among others, when passed into law would stop the importation of over aged and salvaged vehicles to be imported into the country.

It is in connection with the policy of government to partner big international automobile firms VW, Volvo, Peugeot, Toyota, Sinotrucks, among others, to assemble vehicles in Ghana.

Addressing a news conference on the ban of importation of over aged and salvaged vehicles, the National President of ADUG, Erick Kwaku Boateng said the ban on second-hand vehicles in the country would make more than two million people in the automobile industry to lose their jobs.

He said apart from the impact the ban of second-hand vehicles would have on the business of ADUG members, government did not consult the association to make its input into the bill.

“ADUG is not against the policy of government to assemble in Ghana, but we players in the second-hand vehicle industry want to know what is in the policy for us,” Mr Boateng stated.

The ADUG National President observed that the ban on importation of second-hand vehicles would affect government revenue generation, and also affect players in the insurance and spare parts industries, adding that the ban would affect the public because it was not every individual who could afford a new vehicle.

The National Secretary of ADUG, Clifford Ansu for his part said the transport industry, largely depended on second-hand vehicles, and any move to kill the industry would have serious repercussions on the economy.

He said most trotro operators were using second-hand vehicles and it was second-vehicles which were used to cart foodstuffs from the hinterlands to the city.

Mr Ansu asked the Majority Leader, who he alleged, among things, to have said on radio that the numerous road crashes in the country was due to second-hand vehicles, to come clear on that statement.

He said the Majority Leader should rather talk about the narrow and terrible nature of the country’s roads; “perhaps, we assume that he did express his personal opinion and not the position of the government.  But if it is indeed the position of the government then we are in for trouble as a country.”

The Greater Accra Chairman of ADUG, Eddie Kusi Ankomah said the ban on the importation of over aged and salvaged vehicles would collapse the businesses of second-hand car dealers in the country, and threatened that the association would use every legal means, as is did with the Luxury Tax, to stop the moves by the government to kick second-hand vehicle dealers out of business.

BY KINGSLEY ASARE