Why second-hand appliances should not be banned – GUTA

President of Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA), Dr Joseph Oteng, says the Energy Commission has gone contrary to the initial understanding with his group.

According to him, the agreement with the Commission was that only old or new electrical appliances below standard and those with hazardous effects should be banned.

He indicated that the ban on second-hand electrical appliances entirely is a wrong move as some are above standard, unlike some new appliances.

“When we had a meeting with the Energy Commission, we were not supposed to import sub-standard goods or goods with hazardous effects into Ghana and we agreed.

“The understanding we all had was that those sub-standard goods with hazardous effects can be in both new and old appliances. So we were going to use standards and regulations to separate the bad appliances whether new or old.

“But as we’ve realized they want to band the old goods entirely based on the same reasons of the sub-standards, it does not sit well with us,” he explained on Accra-based Neat FM.

To him, the Commission has no clear definition of a second-hand appliance.

He, therefore, suggested that used appliances should not be banned completely rather same methods used in detecting whether new appliances are above or below standard should be applied to second-hand appliances.

“The Standard Authority says that some of the new goods do not qualify under their standards, so they send them back. The same method used in sending the new goods back or destroying them is the same one they’re supposed to use in detecting whether a used one conforms to the standard and then disallow it from entering.

“On what criteria are you defining the used item? Are you using age, and with the age is it that when an item is used for one day it doesn’t qualify, or does an item used for 10 days or 10 years qualify to be used? So even with that, there’s some difficulty.”

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“So absolute goods like the Cathode Ray Tube TVs and incandescent bulbs can be banned as they consume so much energy.

“If you’re talking about energy conservation, Ghanaians as consumers have realized that some of these new goods consume so much power even more than the used appliances,” he said.

 Effective November 1, 2023, imported electrical appliances that do not meet the minimum energy efficiency performance standard requirements will be banned. 

The standards are contained in the Standards and Labelling Regulations of the Energy Commission.

The move is in line with the new regulations to prevent the country from becoming a dumping ground for 20 electrical appliances, including home, office, and industrial electrical appliances.

The affected appliances include electrical cook stoves, television sets, refrigerators, air conditioners, bulbs, electric kettles, solar panels, computers, and set-top boxes (television decoders).

Others are ventilating fans, storage water heaters, industrial fans, renewable energy batteries, public lighting, improved biomass, electric motors, distribution transformers, and inverters.