{"id":235754,"date":"2016-07-29T20:02:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T20:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=235754"},"modified":"2016-07-29T20:02:43","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T20:02:43","slug":"government-lifts-ban-on-inland-border-rice-importation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=235754","title":{"rendered":"Government lifts ban on inland border rice importation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Importers of rice into Ghana can now do so through the land borders from the 1st<\/sup> August this year.<\/p>\n

It 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But a statement from the Trade Ministry and copied to Citi Business News<\/strong> indicated that from Monday, all importers could do so via the inland borders.<\/p>\n

The Ministry however requested that importers continue to abide by the regulations guiding importation into the country.<\/p>\n

In March this year, the Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association, Sampson Asaaki Awingobit said government must be vigilant and deal with the matter.<\/p>\n

His appeal followed numerous concerns by importers of rice about the increase in the illegal importation of rice into the country.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018It is legitimate, it is true, it is real and we want the Ministry of Trade and Industry to come out as a matter of urgency.\u00a0If it is true there was a law or a directive banning the importation of inland rice onto the markets, then what are they doing about this situation?\u201d Sampson Asaaki lamented.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the Bureau for Internal Affairs (BIA), an anti-corruption organisation and a centre for information gathering on public concerns, had asserted that there is still a hidden trade war between Ghana and Ivory Coast resulting from a previous ban on inland rice importation by Ghana.<\/p>\n

Ms Cynthia Essandoh, BIA Coordinator, \u00a0in a statement\u00a0said that the decision to ban inland importation of rice appears to have been taken by the Ghana\u2019s Trade Ministry without proper consultation with the relevant stakeholders.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Pius Amihere Eduku\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Importers of rice into Ghana can now do so through the land borders from the 1st August this year. It 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. The ban, which has been in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":235756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,171,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-local-economy","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/235756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}