The crime officers in a group photograph with facilitators of the programme
About nineteen crime officers have been selected to undergo a day’s seminar on counterfeit products detection at the police headquarters in Accra.
The seminar organized by the Sollatek Ghana Limited in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service is to educate the personnel on how some criminals were using the trade mark of companies to produce counterfeit products and break the trade mark laws.
The director in charge of Operations at the Criminal Investigations Department, Chief Superintendent Felix Mawusi in an address said building capacity of police personnel will help the police initiate actions on their own to apprehend suspects committing such acts.
He said counterfeiting was an organized crime and a menace that needed to be curbed from our society.
For drugs, he indicated, such products are often harmful to our health while most of the counterfeit electrical materials cause fire outbreaks in our homes.
“Those who deal in counterfeit products pay no taxes and this brings unfair competition to the original companies which leads to the closure of genuine businesses resulting in unemployment.”
“The trademark law, Act 664 was introduced in 2004 and amended in 2014 to Act 876 and this amendment has made provision for handling and proper disposal of counterfeit goods.”
He continued that under the old law, confiscated items would only be forfeited to the state after prosecution but in the new law, the items can be forfeited to the state or destroyed while prosecution is still ongoing.
Touching on the punishments under the law, he said the new law has enhanced punishment to a prison term from five to 15 years and up to 7000 penalty units for fines.
The managing director of Sollatek Ghana limited, Mr Joe Fabian in an address said his company was suffering from counterfeiting of most of their products.
He said these unscrupulous persons have even introduced some new products including electrical wires and plugs that Sollatek Ghana is not producing.
By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey