Textiles printing firm GTP has sacked 130 of its workers, Secretary-General of the Ghana Federation of Labour Abraham Koomson has revealed.
According to him, the decision was taken following the inability of the company to deal with competition arising out of smuggling of imported goods into the market.
This is not the first time a textile company has had to send home some of its staff over smuggled goods, and Mr Koomson feels the situation might get worse.
"ATL, Printex, they are all on their marks and anything can happen to them also", he predicted on Accra-based Joy FM.
The textile industry witnessed massive job cuts in the country recently following the energy crisis.
In the 1970s, the industry had a huge workforce of 25,000, but it now employs about 1,700 following the lack of effective policies to deal with the smuggling menace.
Mr Koomson who doubles as a member of the Anti-piracy taskforce believes that "if we even go and sleep in the market, these people will bring [smuggled goods]. Almost every day we make arrests."
He accused Customs officials of conniving with smugglers to bring fake textiles into the country.
“We have had occasions where we chanced on Customs officials who have seized trucks but refused to dispose of them,” he said.
From about 20 companies existing in the 80s, only about 8 remain.
Some of them still trying to keep pace in the market in the face of unfair competition from pirated designs include Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL), Textyl Printex and the Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC) and Ghana Textiles Limited (GTP).
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