Majority, Minority clash over 1-district-1-factory

Another plagiarism controversy has hit the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government as Minority legislators have accused government of plagiarising their ideas in the budget presentation recently.

According to the aggrieved Members of Parliament, the One District, One Factory policy and other social intervention programmes were the creation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Contributing to the debate on the budget statement, Keta MP Richard Quarshigah said the much-touted one factory per district policy was mooted by the NDC and its implementation expected to have taken place from this year.

“1-district-1-factory is a project of the NDC administration and I have the documents here,” he told the House during a discussion on Friday March 10.

But the Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, denied the claims, saying the NPP was the originator of the idea.

“My good friend Honourable Member for Keta is trying to allege that the NPP has stolen the idea from the NPP and he mentioned the Minority Leader, who was then the Minister of Trade. Maybe, he is too young to remember. I want to remind him that the District Industrialisation Programme was conceived under the fathership of Honourable Alan Kyerematen under the Kufour administration and the Minority Leader inherited that programme. He plagiarised and in eight years he simply could not do it, that is fact,” he explained.

However, the MP for Keta responded in an interview with Class FM’s parliamentary correspondent, Ekow Annan, saying: “Because the NPP stole our ideas, they have serious challenges properly executing them.”

But Gomoa West MP Alexander Kodwo Abban told Class News the assertions by the Minority could not be true.