The Ashanti regional Police Command stormed the New Kumasi Market (Dubai) and seized textiles worth GH¢500,000 believed to have been smuggled into the country.
The operation, The Chronicle gathered, was conducted following a suspicion of intellectual property theft of Ghanaian textiles designs by some traders.
Information available to this paper has it that, these traders do not pay taxes, since their wares are unapproved.
Led by the police and officials of some personnel of textile companies, the security officers seized the textiles on grounds that the goods had some designs belonging to textile companies.
The development has rankled traders in Dubai to protest by closing their shops.
They accused the Ghana Police Service and some textile companies in the country of harassment.
The aggrieved traders argued that one Kia truck loaded with textiles have been impounded by the officials for committing no offense
Addressing the media, the Queen Mother for Cloth Sellers atKejetia, who doubles as the Chairperson for Ashanti Regional Cloth Sellers Association, Nana Yaa Boadu, said they have committed no offense in selling such products.
According to Yaa Boaduwaa, the clothes in question go through all the necessary documentations at the port, adding that she finds it difficult to comprehend what the police are doing.
Quizzed about want they intend to do about the seizure of their goods, she said the traders would embark on massive demonstration against authorities in the region, over the way they are being harassed.
Speaking to the Director of Sales at the Textiles Ghana Limited, which owes the trademark Ghana Textiles Printing (GTP)), Mr. Emmanuel Kissi, he confirmed the development, but indicated that they have no hand in what happened in Kumasi.
He, however, welcomed the seizure, emphasising that it is a good thing that was done because it is one of the things that “we have been hammering on this year that we want to see, how we can stop this menace in the trade.”
Kissi acknowledged the challenges fake textiles pose to Ghanaian textiles industry, stating “It is true that the textile industry is going through quite a number of challenges and the smuggling from other places being one of them.”
According to Emmanuel Kissi, they have done a number of educations in Accra and Kumasi, telling the market women to stop selling fake products since it is illegal.
“The designs that we produce are more or less done by ourselves. What happens is that we make the designs, but they are able to replicate that same design and sell them; I mean they put another label on it and sell as if it was theirs’
The most terrible one is that they are actually able to replicate the same thing like GTP and purport to put a GTP label on it as if it is coming from us and also go and sell.”
