A troubling new Bill is
making its way through Parliament, a parliament
that allows almost all the waste of the world,
computer related waste included, to flow into
the country, will now choose to prohibit or
punish the importation of salvaged vehicles.
On March 3, 2020, The
Graphic reported that Parliament was
considering prohibiting “the importation of
salvaged vehicles comprising wrecked, destroyed,
or physically damaged by collision, fire, water
as well as specified motor vehicles over 10
years of age into the country.”
The Bill, The Graphic
stated, “will also increase the import duty on
specific motor vehicles and provide import duty
exemptions for the security agencies” and their
officers, “especially those who go on special
assignments….”
The exemptions are just
the transactional part.
The biggest benefit, supposedly, is the
rationale for the Bill to create a desired
environment for foreign based auto industries to
establish manufacturing plants in the country;
in
the style of the KFCs and the Burger Kings.
With this rationale,
one has to worry about the seriousness of our
friends in Parliament.
You grow industries,
the auto industry included.
The Kantakas, the Aboseokais and the
Kumasi magazine shops are waiting for the right
incentives to grow.
They all need used
parts from salvaged vehicles.
The objective of the
Bill may be desirable but the process given is
wrong.
It shows a certain lack of seriousness.
A Bill of such gravity
must not be a transactional matter, such as one
to appease foreign auto companies or pacify our
security agencies.
This Bill must be
created on the basis of how best to affect our
development and it falls short on this goal.
But why did salvaged
vehicles get on the national agenda, did
Parliament perceive them as problems or
opportunities?
From the negative side,
they would have to use the excuse that the
salvaged vehicle represented only danger.
But to arrive at this pretext they would
have to entertain deliberately
some misunderstanding about the label and its
intended usage, once imported into the country.
Salvaged vehicles are
not meant for road usage.
How some manage to get on our roads is an
official problem and what Parliament and
officialdom have to worry about.
However, there is a
difference when a salvaged vehicle is brought in
and ends up at the local shops for use as parts
and or as a resource for a productive enterprise
like a refurbishing or recycling industry.
It is the above areas
that must have support from Parliament, with the
appropriate laws and incentives.
They represent a much
bigger opportunity in the long term than the
hurry to provide a base for foreign owned
manufacturing companies to grow.
This Bill, when
refitted, must allow importation of salvaged
vehicles for the strict purpose of use as parts
and refurbishing.
There is a rich pool of local talents in
country, capable of using them and a Diaspora
community already proven willing to provide the
resource.
Unfortunately, rather
than encouraging the Diaspora community, the
Bill targets them as some type of offenders.
The salvaged vehicles
the Diaspora community sends must be considered
as a solid FDI settlement meant to support
families and individual enterprises at home.
Parliament is planning to ban or raise duties on
them.
Nonetheless, the
salvaged vehicle is a capital inflow, one that
is not a loan, or grant and unearned by
government.
And one that if nurtured by the right
policies can spark local ingenuity and feasible
ventures for prospective Ghanaian
industrialists.
For a small capital the
astute mechanic can turn, at least, a shed into
a factory, from which refurbished items can be
produced. Dead alternators can be made
useable. And a compressor can be recharged
and returned to life, sold and exported and the
income brought back in country.
Given time the desired
industry will grow.
However, this possibility will be stifled
or slowed down by the new Bill.
Contrast this local
industrial possibility with that of the larger,
readymade foreign auto plants brought in
country, and you get something different.
Something more
grandiose, that creates expertise dependency and
a demand that its capital and profits be
repatriated. The hit on our foreign
reserve will increase as a result. Then
ask why a patriot will prefer this option for
our development.
The homegrown auto
industry is doable.
But we have to own that idea first.
And not be petty about the opportunities
the salvaged vehicle grants the Diaspora
community.
To do this, we need a
Bill that looks at the salvaged vehicle
differently.
First, proper controls
must be placed on the importation.
They are titled "salvaged" because they
are not fit for road usage – all of them.
The proper controls must be at the port
of entry.
Discipline and common sense are required
there.
The salvaged vehicle
poses risks on roads.
Risks that have no age limit.
Once a vehicle is in an accident and
written off as salvaged, its utility thereafter
is somewhat compromised.
Fortunately, every
salvaged vehicle has a record. It's
available on the internet and can be readily
accessed from desks at ports of entry.
There is no need to
fake ignorance of this, therefore, no vehicle
designated as salvaged can be allowed a road
worthy certificate at a port of entry and a
license plate or insurance policy
subsequently issued for it.
Second, citizens must
be made aware that salvaged vehicles, even if
branded rebuilt, are not safe.
"Bent frame from a
prior accident, or electrical faults from floods
do present real chances for break downs and or
causing deaths on the road," paraphrasing
an expert publication.
Owners and importers of
the salvaged vehicle must be made liable for
misuse of entry certificates issued.
Road usage and failures that result must
be checked against the original certification
issued, the penalties for which abuses should
automatically apply.
But it seems the new
Bill will choose to ignore all the above,
include refusing to make use of the positives
inherent in the importation of the salvaged
vehicle.
What looks obvious is
the appeasements given; the intent to create
exemption for “security agencies and officers”
to escape the discomfort of the new Bill.
Like every Ghanaian
worker, the security officers are employed and
paid to do what they do.
So why create a special reward for them?
The Diaspora community,
absent and remote, will, however, be squeezed
for more revenue by the new Bill.
Though, they continue through acts of
remittances to help alleviate poverty in the
country, there is no reward for them.
The country will be
the poorer if this Bill is passed.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja,
Publisher www.ghanadot.com , Washington, DC,
March 15, 2020.
Permission to
publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at
a website, email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at
all.
