Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely Hayford, has warned that government’s flagship programme, one district, one factory, could fail due to what he describes as the poor financing strategy for the programme.
According Mr. Casely Hayford, despite the availability of funds for the programme, government’s inability to design an effective financing strategy for it might negatively affect its success.
“If the government does not sit up this one district, one factory thing will fail. It will fail because first of all I think the whole idea of how to finance it and make it work is wrong.
“I have it on record that money has been released to the Ministry of Trade and Industry. They have the money to move this forward. What we do not have now is the mechanics of where the money is going to sit, who is going to disburse it and at what interest rates,”Mr. Casely Hayford argued.
[contextly_sidebar id=”W0lYeVKVZRYV7YW1jqGHX7xjKRVPvIig”]Government has been criticized in recent times for not being able to ensure the construction of factories as part of the one-district one-factory initiative.
Per the promise, it is expected that every Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assembly will have a factory established to boost local economies and create jobs for the youth.
Speaking on Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue, Mr. Casely Hayford advised government to devise a more effective financing strategy to address challenges hindering the implementation of the programme.
“If government wants to really get this moving, they have to design a different process of making that money affordable to the persons who want to set up the factories and it should not be a government managed programme which is what they are doing wrong at the moment. It is sitting at the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Trade and Industry has with all due respect, not enough entrepreneurial support to build a pineapple factory. We should not keep repeating the same mistakes,”he argued.
‘Not every district may have a factory in 4 or 8-yrs’ – Hamid
Casely Hayford’s comments come days after the Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid, had indicated that government might not be able to establish factories in every district before the end of the Akufo Addo tenure.
Mr. Hamid, speaking on Accra-based Asempa FM had said it is their hope that if they are unable to create factories in all the districts as promised, successive governments would complete it.
“…President Akufo-Addo was virtually saying that for this country to improve, it is a country that we can get one district one factory, and that when he gets the power he will put in place measures to make sure that dream is fulfilled. So he may not in the four years or eight years be able to establish a factory for every district, but whatever it is, even if he is able to do 100 or 200, any successive president can continue with the projects, then [it will mean that] we are moving towards President Akufo-Addo’s Ghana beyond aid agenda,” he stated.
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
