Executive secretary of the Automobile Dealers’ Association, Clifford Ansu, has revealed the Association is intensifying pressure on government to withdraw the controversial customs Amendment bill from Parliament, as it is bound to affect their business.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Ansu undeniably intimated that there has been engagement with government on the amendment bill, however, he maintains government did not engage them when “the bill was prepared”.
“What they asked us was not what came in… nobody will be included for a law to be enacted against him, because this particular law will hurt our business. It is going to hurt us, the impact that is going to be on us is going to be huge”.
“The bill was passed in March this year, after the passage of the bill, we identified some aspects which in our opinion is going to destroy our operation as second hand car dealers in this country. So, we alerted government, we spoke with the Minister for Trade and Industry [and] we’ve been speaking to him severally. We went as far as the president, we made our petitions clear to him, he said we should come and meet the minister and continue the deliberation… so the matter can be sent to parliament for amendment to be done for us”.
According to him, parliament went on recess on the said day and as a result their “concerns on this matter was not even addressed”.
“There was no official document to prove that indeed the conversation that we had with the minister based on the concern we are talking about is not done. It means that, the business that we are doing now, per the law [and] as it stands, has no future because the implementation date is November 1; and November 1 according to government, [and with] the pressure and agitation in the system, that is why they said they’ve suspended the law.
“You’ve now suspended the implementation date, when are you bringing the implementation? We are yet to know… it appears that the business that we are doing is going to be handed over to the investors, the assemblers, because if you listen to the commentary, if you listen to other statements from His Excellency the president, he said this policy has come so that the [protection] of second hand vehicles can be cut down.
“It means that the advantage rather is not coming to us [but] rather going the other way”.
The bill when effected will officially set legal ground for the ban on the importation of accident and salvaged motor vehicles into the country.
On March 4, 2020, The Automobile Dealers Union Ghana (ADUG) described government’s decision to prohibit car dealers from importing ‘second hand’ vehicles older than 10 years as unfortunate.
The Customs Amendment Bill was passed on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at the second reading stage in Parliament.
Per the Bill, the government will stop the importation of used vehicles that are older than 10 years and salvaged cars.
However, the Automobile Dealers Union finds this decision unfair.
Speaking in an interview then, the Secretary of the Union, Clifford Ansu noted that if the car’s fender, bonnet, boot, or other part is broken which somebody can buy and import into the country, “I don’t think that those ones should be banned.”
“But the ones that cannot be driven at all, a vehicle that has been damaged or caught by fire or the body is totally condemned, nobody will even invest their money in and buy them to import them into this country. So if you go on to say that there is a broken part and for that matter, those things are not going to be allowed, then I think that it’s rather unfortunate.
“We have a lot of cars that are even older, even more than 40 to 50 years old, and they are still allowed to be driven on our roads. What are you going to do with those ones but you say you are going to ban a car that has just a few parts broken”.
