By Franklin Asare-Donkoh
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Operations at the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Prof. Michael Ayamga-Adongo, has cautioned members of the Abossey Okai Spare Parts Dealers Association that attempts to enforce investment laws on their own without recourse to state authorities could trigger international retaliation.
He therefore urged members of the Association to be mindful of their actions and to use the appropriate forums to address their grievances.
Prof. Adongo was commenting on an exercise carried out by the executives of the Association on Monday, September 8, 2025, to enforce Section 27(1) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Act, 2013 (Act 865), which prohibits non-citizens from engaging in petty trading, hawking, or selling goods in stalls and markets. He made the remarks on Channel One TV’s Breakfast Daily show on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, stressing that only the appropriate authorities are mandated to enforce such laws.
“It is the responsibility of law enforcement, the Ghana Immigration Service, and other relevant agencies to monitor and regulate these matters. To the extent that other actors take the law into their own hands and begin to enforce these things is problematic,” he said.
Prof. Adongo further warned that the Association’s actions could spark retaliatory measures against Ghanaians living abroad.
“They will have to allow the established systems to work, because their action may trigger reactions and responses from other jurisdictions where we also have Ghanaians who may not be doing what they are doing here. But the fact that they have heard that their citizens have come under certain forms of attack — it could trigger that kind of thing,” he reiterated.
The exercise by the executives of the Association on Monday, September 8, 2025, resulted in a near-confrontation between some foreign traders and the dealers.
