One district, one factory not doable - Aryeetey

Economist Prof Ernest Aryeetey has said President Nana Akufo-Addo’s one-district-one-factory policy is not doable.

The aim of the policy is to industrialise Ghana nationwide while creating jobs.

However, the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana said at a Graphic-Stanbic business breakfast meeting organised in Accra on Tuesday, 14 February that: “…I always say that since you are not going to create jobs in the short term in your cities, you’ve got to focus on rural districts. And how do you do it? It’s not going to be easy. I was very happy that in the government’s campaign to be elected, it did talk about one-district-one-factory [policy]. I don’t believe you can do that. I don’t believe you can do one-district-one-factory nor do I believe there is a need for it.”

According to Prof Aryeetey, “there is a need to have for each district of Ghana, an industrial development plan that will have a focus on transformation of the district economy and a focus on job creation, so, if that job creation, as a result of the plan, is coming through one factory, then so be it.”

As far as he is concerned, “…it is the structure of the district economy that will determine what should be done there: maybe that structure is going to lead to more emphasis on agriculture, maybe that structure is going to lead on construction, maybe that structure is going to lead on services, depending on the skills set available. So, we need to have for every district, a plan in terms of what is going to change and how that change is going to lead to more jobs.

“And I would say in that plan, the emphasis should be on modernising agriculture because that’s what you have, that’s the potential that you have most, the idea here is to help fill that middle that is missing,” Prof Aryeetey said.