<<Print>>Former Deputy Minister of Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, says the government has not been candid on the ‘1-district, 1-factory’ initiative it promised the people of Ghana in the run up to the 2016 elections.
He said the impression created by the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party at the time was that they were going to establish big factories in all the districts to employ thousands of people but on assumption of office the situation appeared different. Mr Kwakye-Ofosu was surprised that the government instead of establishing the factories is asking Ghanaians to seek investors to embark on that project. “There is some disconnect between what they said and what they are doing in government. What we are going to see is not mega factories that we see and we need to do proper assessments so that people would not see expectations they will not be met”, Mr. Kwaky- Ofosu said.
Contributing to discussions on the newspaper segment of TV3’s New Day, he said “you don’t put micro factories to employ only five people and say you have created factories. Those kinds of massive employment factories are what we need and not those micro factories they are talking about”. He was commenting on the five-day trip by the Vice President, Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia’s to China.
The Vice President is leading a government delegation to China to explore opportunities and to showcase Ghana for them to come and invest in the government’s “one-district-one-factory policy”. “What they said in opposition is significantly different. Why would the NPP assume that all constituencies will be painted with the same brush and that one constituency need is the same as the other? They need to level up and be candid to Ghanaians”, Mr Kwakye-Ofosu said.
On his part, the Member of the Parliament for the Effutu Constituency in the Central Region, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, justified the need for Ghanaians to partner foreign investors to establish the factories “we [Ghanaian businesses] don’t have [the] financial muscle to do it so you tap into other areas who have it… a partnership because we don’t have the financial muscle”. The MP said “foreign investors can come in the 1-districts-1-factory while the local business can partner with the foreign investors to come up with a project and that will create jobs and help in managing inflations”.