Suppliers demand full payment of debts govt owes
The National Association of Institutional Suppliers (NAIS) is demanding payment of all outstanding debt government owes them for 2022 to prevent the collapse of their businesses.
Advertisement
The membership of the association comprises seamstresses, tailors, fashion designers, garment producers and textiles designers who supply clothing such as school uniforms, house jerseys, outing dresses, stationery and food items to senior high schools and other institutions across the country.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the association called on the Ministry of Education to, as a matter of urgency, pay all the outstanding debts, review the prices of school uniforms and house dress in line with the current inflationary trend, abolish the demand for them to supply trousers instead of shorts, among others.
The president of the association, Stephen Oware, addressing journalists, said for the past 18 months, the government had failed to pay them their money which had made it difficult for them to continue producing uniforms for the schools.
He also said they could no longer produce two sets of uniform comprising two shirts and two shorts for GH¢120 which had remained at a fixed rate since 2016.
He, therefore, called for an upward review of the prices for the same set to GH¢260 to reflect current cost of production.
‘If government fails to address our concerns within 14 days, we will picket the Ministry of Education till our money is paid since our businesses are collapsing”, Mr Oware said.
Members
He explained that members of the association had been supplying educational materials to the schools and colleges of education before the introduction of the Free SHS programme.
Other Trending Stories
“Before the Free SHS programme, prices of the items we supplied were fixed at the beginning of the academic year after stakeholders’ engagement and in consideration of the market situation and inflationary trend of the year”, he said.
However, he said this arrangement was halted in 2017 when the Free SHS was introduced, although the government continued to pay them for five years with the 2016 fixed price.
Mr Oware said the current economic situation and price hikes had seriously affected their businesses making it impossible for them to continue production at the same price.
“As you are aware, the present economic situation and its attendant price hikes have seriously affected our production cost.
The average inflation rate from 2017 to date, for instance, is 24.4 per cent and the dollar, which was GH¢3.9 in 2017, is now hovering around GH¢12.
All the factors affecting our production have not been favourable and, therefore, the cost of production has been abnormally high”, he said.
Supply
He said in spite of all these, the prices fixed for the supply of the clothing had remained the same and added that the school uniform materials from Printex Ghana, which was GH¢12.40 per yard in 2017, was now GH¢50 per yard.
The association, he said, had written series of letters to the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service requesting an upward adjustment but there had not been any positive response.
“At our last meeting with the Minister of Education about a few months ago, he admitted the present price hikes and its effect on our production but regrettably remarked that the government’s budget was already tight and that such an increase could not be catered for”, Mr Oware said.
Students
Meanwhile, they had been tasked to supply trousers to students instead of pair of shorts without any cost analysis on how it would impact their business.
For the past four years, he said, members of the association had sacrificed to endure the situation ‘but we cannot continue any longer.
We are unable to break even let alone make a profit”.
Advertisement
He lamented that the non-payment of their money by government was subjecting them to a lot of embarrassment from their bankers as a result of loans they took while some were losing their valuable properties used as collaterals at the banks.
He, therefore, called on the Ministry to address their challenges and not further deepen their burdens.