More investors interested in one district one factory - Ohene-Konadu

The Akufo-Addo-led government's One District One Factory programme, which is said to be launched next month, has received tremendous response from many investors across the globe.

The National Coordinator of the policy, Mrs Gifty Ohene-Konadu, revealed: “Development agencies are seriously exploring ways they can provide support, and foreign investors and companies are knocking at our doors to find out possible areas of investment opportunities within our districts.

"Political parties are monitoring and watching how well or bad we perform on this project. Hence, this is one project that the whole nation has extremely high expectations of.”

At a stakeholders’ seminar at the Alisa Hotel in Accra on 23rd May, 2017, she said her Secretariat has been receiving calls from many companies seeking to partner government for the implementation of the programme. She, therefore, reiterated that the president was very determined to bring the One District, One Factory policy vision into reality.

“He made mention of this vision in the statement during his campaign for the high office; he is determined to bring this vision into reality, not because it is a campaign promise but because he strongly believes that it is the best approach to spread development across the country,” she reiterated.

She added that the prime objective of the project is to promote industrial development across the country, with the aim of creating jobs and discouraging rural-urban migration.

Mrs Konadu also mentioned that her Secretariat was excited about the readiness and the enthusiasm of the private sector to get involved and contribute to the success of the project.

“Today, the One District, One Factory concept has also become a national cliché. Everybody talks about it. A lot of institutions are aligning their programmes to it. The private sector is talking about it and seeking information on how best they can participate,” Mrs Ohene-Konadu noted.

She admonished everyone to play their respective roles effectively to support the implementation of the project, in order not to disappoint stakeholders, but rather work hard to achieve the vision of the President.

The national coordinator said the Office of the project would develop different interventions to address different needs of the businesses wanting to establish factories in the districts.

“For some, the need could be marketing. For others, it may be raw material supplies, others could be marketing, for others it could be land acquisition and complying with local laws. Yet, others could be finance, business linkages, etc. Some may require minor intervention, since they may have the capacity to set up factories without much support. Others may require active and bigger support,” according to Mrs Ohene-Konadu.

She however, emphasised that the One District, One Factory policy was not a finance scheme but an industrial promotion project, and therefore, enterprises should not apply with the sole objective of obtaining finance.

“Financial intervention may be part of the service but it will only be a small part of the service,” she spelt out, and said the Secretariat had learnt lessons from previous models that developed to industrialise the country but did not yield any positive results.

“The presentation on investment framework that we present to you today will indicate that we will not do business as usual. The old method of releasing funds directly to an entrepreneur from a ministry and a secretariat will not happen again, because the desired impact was not realised under the scheme,” she noted.

Mrs Konadu further elaborated on the policy, saying the project would operate on sustainable basis and government would through the coordinating office play a facilitation role.

“It is the reason why we have asked the AGI’s active involvement at this early stage. We sincerely acknowledge the role the Association of Ghana Industries has played so far, we expect even more active involvement of the association and its members at the national and also the regional and district levels since it is the umbrella groupings of Ghanaian industries, comprising companies in the manufacturing service and the oil and gas sectors,” she stressed.

“In the end, the measure of performance will not be the noise we make, it will not be the number of activities we have embarked on. Rather, people will judge us on the basis of quality business we have helped establish, number of sustainable jobs we have created, improvement in the lives of people in the rural communities, reduction of rural-urban migration, a strong foundation for industrial development in the districts, and the overall impact of the project on the economic development of Ghana,” she concluded.