The Government of Ghana is set to outdoor its flagship 24 hour economy policy towards the implementation of the 24 hour economy programme for accelerated export and development. The policy launch will be done by President John Mahama on Wednesday, July 2 to formally present the programme to Ghanaians, the Presidential Advisor on 24-hour Economy, Goosie Tanoh, has announced during a courtesy call on the Speaker of Parliament on Friday. The courtesy call was part of activities by the team to tour government institutions including Parliament to present the policy before its official launch next month.
The 24-hour Economy Programme is designed to transform production with agriculture as its main anchor; develop value chains in order for the country to achieve greater productivity by expanding inputs that feed industry and to achieve food self-sufficiency that can lead to export. Mr. Tanoh, who led the team to present the policy document to House Speaker Bagbin shed light on the factors underpinning the programme broken down in three main anchors as follows; Production Transformation, Supply Chain and Market Efficiency, and Human Capital Development.
“And those anchors are supported by eight sub-programmes: Grow24, which is an agricultural component, Make24, which is a manufacturing component, Connect24, which is a supply chain component, Aspire24, which is a mindset change, the resetting of the Ghanaian, equipping the Ghanaian worker, Ghanaian bureaucracy, with a strong and powerful attitude to productivity and to work because without that, we cannot achieve the desire of reset that is the ambition of all of us in the country, and not just the President,” he said
According to the presidential advisor, a major success of the programme will be to create a digitally literate workforce to be done by mainstreaming digital education as part of the TVET curriculum. The objective is for the average Ghanaian youth to compete with any other workforce in Africa or the world. As the programme takes off, certain amendments to existing legislations would be made to harmonise the system with the outcomes of the 24 hour economy. Such amendments will see a system-wide application of rationalised local content rules and practice by relooking at the GIPC Act, PPA Act and local assembly by-laws; establish a National Employment Trust by merging Ghana Enterprises Agency with the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme; replace the Cooperative Society Act; review the Ghana Free Zones Act to emphasise the development of local value chains and special economic zones that also take advantage of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area framework. A section of the Labour Act will also be amended to address the basis for calculating the national daily minimum wage.
Also, the government through its implementation of the 24 hour economy programme will reform the electricity tariff structure that takes into effect time-of-use of electricity; review Regulation 4(3) of the Electricity Supply and Distribution (Standards of Performance) Regulations, 2008 to peg the maximum duration of outages in a metropolitan or municipal including industrial area for two hours, four hours duration if the outage happened in a district capital and six hours maximum duration in rural areas. Additionally, government is banking on a $10 billion “big push” infrastructure expansion on roads, rail, ports and Volta Lake transport to enhance logistics and market access.
“And in part of the Go Ghana Agenda is the made-in-Ghana agenda. There are so often situations where, when we’re doing tenders, the Ghanaian product is probably about 2 or 3 percent higher than the foreign products, and we opt for the foreign products and put our manufacturers at a disadvantage. We must end that and use the State as a promoter of local manufacturing through the procurement practises that we have so that school uniforms, parliamentary service suits, all of that can be made in Ghana, even if it’s just to add value.”
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, on his part urged the presidential advisor on the 24 hour economy to return to the House after the launch and formally present the policy to the people’s representatives for an opportunity to debate the policy and approve same in order that there will be institutional buy-in across all the organs of government. According to him, the policy may have Executive level approval “but when it comes to implementation, it’s not the executive that drives the implementation”, it is Parliament where Members interact with citizens on a daily basis and can drive advocacy.
“Because there’s no other public official that interacts with the people on a daily basis more than a member of parliament. None. And so you always need the members of parliament to be with you on whatever you want to do. When you have serious objections from it, when you have critical voices from it, you just, in good faith, accept them and see how you maybe improve upon what you’ve got. Or take them on board and try to convince them that what you have proposed is better than what the person is suggesting. That is how you can get politics to work better,” he observed
He said the programme would not be a problem as it provides a catalytic effect that citizens stand to benefit if they imbibe the policy text and implement accordingly. The Speaker shared his excitement in the programme and prayed it doesn’t become a nine day wonder
