Vice-Chairman of the Concerned Drivers Association, David Agboado has said that the government's removal of the benchmark value policy on items will not yield any significant result.

This, according to him, was due to the fact that drivers have not felt the benefit in pricing since the introduction of benchmark value policy over the past two years.

“We [drivers] are not feeling the impact that government was doing in the past, so I don’t see the benchmark being removed will do anything,” he said.

Speaking in an interview on PM Express on Tuesday, he explained that the low confidence in the benchmark removal is also based on the extreme prices of vehicles and spare parts in their sector.

“When you go to Abossey Okai or you to port and you want to buy a vehicle, the prices on it whether been benchmark or not, you cannot feel it. Matrix 2 or matrix 3 at 2018, 2017 there about you can get it 200 but today as I am talking to you, if not 350 then 400 you cannot those cars to buy so I don’t see the value of benchmark likewise the spare parts.

“When you go to Abbosey Okai to go and buy spare parts when you go something like sprinter steer rack goes last year for 1800 is now 2400,” he indicated on JoyNews.

The Chief Executive of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Seth Twum-Akwaboah responding to Mr Agboado’s grievances said some analysis has to be done on the issues raised.

He added that “there are so many factors that determine the price of a product at a particular time so it could be that in a particular time even if there was an effort to transfer the benefit to the consumer, other factors came in so we need to analyse that.”   

He, however, stated that the introduction of benchmark value has had a bad impact on local producers making them very uncompetitive and in turn is having a toll on the jobs and investment opportunities in the country.

Also, Mr Twum-Akwaboah noted that the government’s introduction of benchmark value on items has stalled a lot of factories in the country.

This follows the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in a letter forwarded to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, signed by the Commissioner-General, Rev. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah which revealed that effective November 15, the removal of the 50% Benchmark Values on 32 categories of items at the ports will begin.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) is predicting a 25% increase in the price of general goods, should there be any attempt by government to review or reverse the 50% and 30% Benchmark Values policy of some 32 selected items.

Speaking at a press conference, President of GUTA, Dr. Joseph Obeng warned that any attempt to introduce this policy in the 2022 Budget will disrupt Ghana’s distribution sector.

“We should be very surprised if the government succumbs to this treacherous and diabolic request of the AGI who are trying to lobby against this most acceptable flagship policy of the government to destroy the distribution sector of the economy,” Dr. Joseph Obeng said.