Ghana fined €14,000 for failing to show up at trade fair

leading consumer trade fair in the world, Messe Frankfurt, has fined Ghana €14,301 (about GH¢67,000) for failing to participate in two international trade fairs in Frankfurt, Germany.

The levy was fined on the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) after it had paid €40,000 to secure exhibition space at the fair but failed to show up, the Daily Graphic reports.

Officials of GEPA have confirmed the imposition of the penalty.

They have, however, denied the claim that Ghana paid €40,000 (about GH¢187,000) to participate in the event but failed to attend.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GEPA, Mr James Z. Tiigah, told the Daily Graphic that GEPA was fined €10,309 to cover the cost of a stand and its inability to attend Ambiente in 2015; it was fined €3,992.13 for the same reasons in 2016.

He said GEPA failed to attend the just-ended Ambiente, because the trip had not been budgeted for and the authority had no funds to sponsor its officials to travel to Germany for the fair.

“We did not deliberately decide not to go but the issue is that there was no budget for us to go. Also, the event coincided with the transition period so we were all busy,” he said.

The CEO believed the fine could have been avoided if the authority’s scheduled officer in charge of the Ambiente Fair had notified the organisers of GEPA’s inability to be at the programme.

Ambiente 2017 had about 4,500 exhibitors, with some of the world’s leading consumer goods, as well as a variety of events and promotional programmes.
However, the Daily Graphic reported that Ghana’s stand reserved for export promoting agencies was empty at the time of their visit.