Scrap Export Industry Runs Broke

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Members of Scrap Dealers Association, the Ashanti Chapter have fingered Hon Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Trade and Industry over his reluctance in taking?concrete steps?towards ensuring that the wholesale?ban on the?exportation of scraps is relaxed to the barest minimum despite?the many concerns raised.

wpid-harunaiddrisu.jpgThe rush by the Hon Minister in requesting for a ban on the exportation of scraps from parliament they described to have been done out of selfish ambition?since he has at heart the plight of only foreign steel companies operating in the country with no room whatsoever to consider the plight of Ghanaian scrap metal dealers. Since coming into force of the ban,?local???players of the industry have been hard hit by a Tsunami of challenges.

Addressing the media at a press conference, the spokesperson for the association Mr.Abdul Latiff Adam indicated that mixed steel was bought for an average of GH?620.00 but with the ban,?it?is currently bought at GH 400.00 by the local steel industries adding that even with the reduction in prices, some of the companies are not able to make quick payments on purchases made from them, thereby leaving??them at the mercy of financial institutions who are always on their tails for their monies offered to them as loans.

The local industry he mentioned,?is in a huge debt of?GH? 20,000,000.00 and are posed with the challenge as to how to get funds to make the payment.

Following the foregoing challenge, many players of the industry all over the country have been rendered unemployed?with several of them running away from their creditors. ?The trade ministry is throwing us out of our jobs and as you already know. A hungry man is an angry man,? he challenged.

The association has therefore made a passionate appeal to His Excellency John Dramani Mahama and for that matter the sector minister Hon Haruna Iddrisu to take a second look into the matter by relaxing the ban to allow them to export scraps that are rejected by the five local steel companies.

They again want to be given the opportunity under the ban to export the following; steel balls, ductile steel, manganese, etc. This according to the association will serve as a window of opportunity to enable scrap dealers survive in the wake of the economic hardship being experienced by all.

His Excellency John Dramani Mahama they appealed should set up a monitoring team to monitor the export of scraps not needed by local steel industries so as to fetch foreign exchange into the economy.

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