Hundreds of textile workers have hit the streets in Accra today (April 27, 2019) to protest the continuous smuggling and sale of pirated wax prints despite the formation of a taskforce to check these things.

The anti-pirated textile taskforce was reconstituted in October 2017. The task force was mandated to check smuggling of fake wax prints into the county.

However, the textile workers argue that the smuggling of pirated wax prints onto the market has rather increased.

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In an interview with Accra-based Starr FM, the spokesperson for the Coalition of Textile Workers John Ackon said this situation has left most of the textile companies laying off workers and reeling under huge debts.

“We want government to give the old mandate that was given to the task force back to be able to go to the market and seize all the pirated cloths like they were doing in 2010 and that was what we have been telling government and they are refusing to do, because we realized that when they started the influx of the pirated wax reduced because when the women had their prints seized they stopped buying the pirated ones,” Ackon noted.

The textile workers have also planned to petition President Nana Akufo-Addo through the Trade Ministry.