A former Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea says President John Mahama and his government must refocus attention towards reviving the many crippling industries in Ghana before thinking about setting up new ones.
“Whilst we talk about bringing in new industries, the existing industries are dying. Go to industrial area they are turning into supermarkets they have become show rooms for cars and big churches.
“Take the pharmaceutical industries in Ghana the volumes are going down… Take the textile industries,” Akomea lamented on Joy FM’s Newsfile programme while discussing President John Mahama’s state of the nation address to Parliament on Tuesday.
A senior economic advisor to the president, Nii Moi Thompson who was on the show and was supporting the president’s call for paradigm shift in Ghana’s economy said there has to be a “transformation agenda” in the economy.
He said Ghana must deal with its structural problems, especially with the challenges in the provision of energy and water.
“Once we get the energy thing resolved we probably get 50 percent of our challenges resolved,” he said.
He said after these successes there has to be “institutional reforms” part of which should make the president sack appointees who fail to deliver.
The deputy Education Minister Samuel Okudzeto chronicled a number of interventions being made by the president to boost industries and to set up new ones.
But Nana Akomea believes very little is being done to help Ghana’s industries. “Even the ones (industries) that are existing, there is no support for them and i thought that you will start with those up and running and are suffering terribly before you can move on to the new ones,” he pointed out.