The Managing Director of the T.T. Brothers Limited, Mr. Isaac Tetteh has expressed relief over President Mahama’s directive which restricts the Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) from using government funds to purchase Christmas gifts and hampers during this Christmas.

This came at the time when most traders have raised concern about the ban describing it as irrelevant and attributing it to one of the causes of low patronage of goods and services during this Christmas season.

But speaking to Joy Business, Mr. Tetteh said the ban is a step in the right direction and there’s no cause for alarm.

He said “I don’t think that will affect our businesses in anyway, what the President said makes sense for some of us as businessmen, that we pay our taxes because if I pay tax and someone sits in his office and uses part of those monies to buy hampers and bring it back to me, then it means he’s returning the tax I’ve paid which doesn’t make sense. Meaning we are just going round the circle among ourselves.”

According to him, the taxpayers’ money which is used for patronizing the Christmas hampers could be channeled towards meeting developmental projects which will aim at nation building.

“We can use that money to meet a lot of developmental projects, schools, roads and water projects are there to be taken care of”.    

Meanwhile, Mr. Tetteh has also urged the government to create an enabling environment which encourages young entrepreneurs to start businesses of their own.

This, he said will help cut down the rate at which Ghanaians indulge in the importation of foreign goods into the country and also promote  the local industries to grow thereby earning Ghana foreign exchange.