A two-day workshop for local book printers opened in Accra on Monday with local printers questioning the tax policy on imported books which, they said, favoured importers of books.

"For many years local printers have been paying duty and VAT on imported printing implements whereas printed books imported from abroad did not attract any taxes," Mrs Agnes Ofosua Vandyck, Executive Director of the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC), told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

She asked why imported books should be duty and VAT free saying this worked to the disadvantage of local book printers. Mrs Vandyck said the workshop would tackle "this critical issue" because the onus lay on local printers to come out with modalities to rectify the problem.

She was speaking to the GNA after the opening ceremony of the workshop, on the: "Ministry of Education (MOE) Textbook Development and Distribution Policy," (TDDP) aimed at strengthening capacity and improving on quality of work of local printers.

The new Textbook Development Policy states: "For the purposes of capacity building in book development, at least 70 per cent of all textbook writing teams will comprise Ghanaian nationals and by the year 2005, 60 per cent of all primary and Junior Secondary School textbooks funded by MOE should be manufactured in Ghana."

Mrs Vandyck noted that the quality of textbooks printed in Ghana had improved saying of late a number of printers had acquired modern and sophisticated equipment to improve on the quality of their work.

"Gone are the days when Ghanaian printers had to have colour separation done for them either in Europe or in Nigeria." She, however, noted that more could be done to raise the standard of the printing industry, to enable it to satisfy the minimum requirements stipulated in MOE's TDDP.

Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Minister of Education, in a speech read for him, underscored the significance of the new policy and said together with its operational annexes, it streamlined the process for the future procurement of quality books by the MOE.

He noted that the Ministry had divested itself of its former role of publisher and distributor of textbook for its schools. This meant that the Curriculum Research Division of the Ghana Education Service would concentrate on the development and review of curricula of the various pre-tertiary institutions, whilst publishers used the syllabuses developed by the CRDD to produce books for procurement by the MOE for its institutions.

Mrs Rebecca Aboagye, Director of Human Resource Management, read the Minister's speech. Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi said in capitalising of the various sectors to strengthen capacity, it would not sacrifice quality in the process.

"Poor quality printing and finishing of books could mar the good effort of a publisher, and negatively affect the work of other stakeholders in the book origination process." He said in an attempt at sourcing the estimated 70 million dollars for the textbook procurement by the publishers, the MOE had to satisfy itself that printers had the relevant resources including manpower and equipment holding to undertake the 60 per cent implementation quota.

In this regard, the GBDC had been mandated to conduct a survey on the capacity of printers. "I suggest to you printers that you work closely with the publishers to come out with a workable plan for achieving this 60 per cent printing quota which is critical to the textbook development programme, adding that the Ministry was expecting their plans for achieving the targets within the next few weeks.