‘Undercover caterers killing our businesses’

Caterers hiding in their homes to sell food to customers have been accused of killing the business of traditional caterers.

The Western Regional President of the Ghana Traditional Caterers Association, Mrs. Patience Botwe Dzakpasu who stated this said the association provided employment to a good number of Ghanaian males and females especially the low-income class, therefore, solving some of Ghana’s unemployment challenges.

She said caterers who hid in their homes and prepared food where many organisations placed orders in the morning and brought vehicles to pick the food in the afternoons were killing the spirit of the association.

Mrs. Dzakpasu was speaking to the media after the 2022 May Day Celebration on the theme “Protecting Jobs and Incomes in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond”.

She said “almost all the caterers hiding in their homes never pay any tax and have taken all the customers of the association”, causing the businessof traditional caterers to go down.”

The President of the Traditional Caterers said because they produced their foods in their homes, the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Assemblies, Ghana Tourism Authority and other bodies authorised to collect taxes for government did not know about these caterers adding “government is losing money from these caterers because they are not easily located.”

She said the cost of food stuffs was very high and prices of goods were also increased daily to the disadvantage of chop bar owners.

Mrs Dzakpazu has, therefore, appealed to the government to help them else if the association collapsed it would create more unemployment in the country considering the number of people it (the association) had employed.

From Peter Gbambila, Takoradi.