Member of Parliament for Adansi-Asokwa appears unenthused by the rate at which Ghana imports some of the most basic of goods.

For Kobina Tahiru Hammond, the trend is worrying and has the propensity to further derail local production by indigenes.

He insists that this development if curbed could help shore up the country’s economy in these trying times.

The legislator made this comment when he appeared before Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Monday, February 20.

“We are importing guts, bladders, stomach of animals to Ghana to complement our foods. And that alone totalled about 164,575,000 plus some hundreds of dollars. I thought this is a little bit of a scandal,” he said.

He was being vetted after his nomination by President Akufo-Addo as Minister for Trade and Industry-designate.

Mr Hammond told the committee that “these importations have terrible effects on our foreign exchange reserves. I think it’s about time we took a serious look at this particular issue. I’m told a committee was put up by cabinet to deal specifically with this matter.”

He was particularly unimpressed that products such as tripe were among the things that found their way into the country.

Meanwhile, MP for Nhyiaeso, Stephen Amoah, the Deputy Trade Minister nominee and Bryan Acheampong, the nominee for the Agriculture Ministry are scheduled to appear.