The Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG) has described a statement by the Minister of State in charge of Finance Ministry, Charles Adu-Boahen, at the investiture of the newly elected President of the Association of Ghana Industries, as unfortunate, deceptive, prejudicial and a show of gross bias towards the ‘benchmark values’ policy implementation.

Mr. Adu-Boahen said at the event that government will take a final decision on the benchmark values by end of January 2022.

“I am happy to let you know that there are continued engagements, with stakeholders ongoing. Please, do not give up. Let us persevere and I am sure we will find ourselves with some good news before the end of the month [January 2022] with regards to the Benchmark values”, the Minster was quoted to have stated among others things.

This the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana (IEAG) in statement said is unacceptable.

“We at the IEAG deem this statement by the honorable minister Charles Adu-Boahen as unfortunate, deceptive, prejudicial and a show of gross bias towards our course in the matter of the benchmark values policy implementation.”

“The secretariat of the IEAG would want to put on record that since the announcement of the indefinite suspension of the implementation of the reversed 50% benchmark values policy by government, no stakeholder engagement has taken place between the IEAG and government”, the statement said.

“Also, the IEAG can state unequivocally that none of its sister organizations including the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF) and the Ghana Union of Trade Associations (GUTA) have been consulted on the way forward on the issues”, it added.

The IEAG are therefore demanding that the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry be made to recuse himself from any stakeholder engagement on this matter going forward.

It also want an immediate retraction of the said statement by the minister, adding “any attempts by government to take sides on this matter would be fiercely fought against by the business community.”

It concluded that the IEAG and its allies remain opened to participating in a fair and transparent stakeholder engagement with government devoid of biases in order to resolve this issue to a logical conclusion.