Ghana’s 24-hour economy policy represents one of the most ambitious attempts in recent decades to re-engineer the nation’s economic architecture.
By extending productive hours across manufacturing, agro-processing, ports, markets, and services, the initiative seeks to maximise the use of existing infrastructure, create jobs on a significant scale, and drive export-led growth.
The recent passage of the 24-Hour Economy Authority Bill signals serious intent at the national level. Yet, as a student of public policy who has read several literature on Ghana’s development policies, I must caution that this flagship programme risks becoming yet another well-intentioned vision that falters at the point of delivery – unless local governance, particularly the metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDAs), is radically strengthened.
THE PIVOTAL ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE
The success of a 24-hour economy depends on granular, ground-level execution. Factories running night shifts require reliable local electricity maintenance, secure transport routes after dark, and waste management systems that operate around the clock.
Night markets and logistics hubs demand effective local security coordination, traffic management, and community acceptance of shift work.
Skills development, dispute resolution, environmental compliance, and the enforcement of incentives all occur primarily at the district level. In short, while policy may be designed in Accra, its lifeblood flows or stagnates through the assemblies.
Without empowered, capable, and accountable local governance, the 24-hour economy will encounter the same structural weaknesses that have undermined previous national initiatives.
PERSISTENT CHALLENGES IN GHANA’S DECENTRALISATION
Ghana’s decentralisation framework, established under the 1992 Constitution and the Local Governance Act, was intended to bring governance closer to the people.
In practice, however, Metropolitan Municipal District Assemblies remain chronically under-resourced, overly dependent on the District Assemblies Common Fund and central transfers, and hampered by limited internally generated funds. Many assemblies struggle with basic capacity: inadequate staffing, weak revenue collection systems, and political interference that prioritises patronage over performance.
Appointed Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) often owe greater allegiance to the centre than to their constituents, reducing local accountability. These are not abstract problems; they have repeatedly doomed ambitious programmes that required strong local ownership.
LESSONS FROM ONE-DISTRICT-ONE-FACTORY (1D1F)
Consider the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) initiative, a flagship industrialisation drive launched with similar fanfare to the current 24-hour economy.
The policy aimed to establish at least one factory in every district to boost processing, create jobs, and reduce import dependence. Many facilities were indeed constructed, yet a significant number have underperformed, been abandoned, or never become fully operational.
In districts across the Western North, Central, Ashanti, and Upper East regions, factories have stood idle or operated far below capacity. Common issues included unreliable power supply, poor linkages to local raw material sources, land and community disputes, and inadequate ongoing maintenance of access roads and utilities.
These failures were not primarily due to flawed national design but to weak local execution. District assemblies were expected to facilitate land acquisition, coordinate with traditional authorities, support farmer linkages, and monitor progress.
In many cases, they lacked the resources, technical expertise, or autonomy to do so effectively. Where local leadership was politicised or disengaged, factories became white elephants – symbols of central ambition disconnected from district realities. The result was underutilised infrastructure, wasted public resources, and dashed expectations for local employment. The 24-hour economy, which seeks to run existing and new facilities around the clock, would amplify these problems: night operations demand even greater local vigilance on security, power stability, and worker welfare.
INSIGHTS FROM ONE-VILLAGE- ONE-DAM (1V1D)
A second instructive case is the One-Village-One-Dam (1V1D) programme, which sought to transform agriculture in the northern regions through small-scale irrigation infrastructure. The vision was sound: provide water for dry-season farming to reduce migration and improve food security. Yet many of the dams have failed to deliver. In communities such as Bassam in the North East Region, structures were built hastily with inadequate spillways, poor siting, and insufficient reinforcement. They quickly silted up, failed to retain water effectively, and in some instances created new hazards such as increased mosquito breeding rather than agricultural opportunity.
Crucially, these shortcomings stemmed directly from the marginalisation of local governance and community input. Residents offered practical knowledge about suitable sites, existing water systems, and landscape realities based on generations of experience.
However, central technocrats and contractors often overrode these insights in favour of standardised designs. Local assemblies and traditional authorities had limited oversight during construction and virtually none in long-term maintenance or handover. Without empowered district structures to integrate local knowledge, enforce quality standards, and ensure community ownership, the programme delivered physical structures but not functional development. The parallel with the 24-hour economy is clear: ambitious infrastructure and operational shifts will collapse if local assemblies cannot effectively coordinate, supervise, and sustain them.
THE RECURRING PATTERN OF POLICY FAILURE
These examples reveal a recurring pattern in Ghanaian policy implementation. National initiatives frequently bypass or underfund the very institutions meant to anchor them at the grassroots. The consequences are predictable: poor coordination, elite capture, citizen disengagement, and eventual policy fatigue. For the 24-hour economy to avoid this fate, a deliberate and urgent programme to strengthen local governance is non-negotiable.
PATHWAYS TO STRENGTHENING LOCAL GOVERNANCE
To make the 24-hour economy viable, local assemblies must be transformed from peripheral players into central operational engines. This requires both structural reforms and clear, practical roles tailored to round-the-clock economic activity.
First, genuine fiscal decentralisation is essential. Assemblies should be granted expanded revenue-raising powers, including the ability to levy targeted night-time economy fees (such as on extended trading hours or logistics operations) and retain a larger share of locally generated funds. Streamlining the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund and introducing performance-based incentives for districts that successfully host 24-hour operations would further empower them.
Second, targeted capacity building must equip assemblies for the unique demands of a 24-hour economy. Training should focus on night-time regulation, including traffic management for shift workers, security coordination with police and private firms, and waste collection schedules aligned with continuous production. Assemblies could then directly oversee the licensing and monitoring of night markets, agro-processing plants operating in shifts, and transport hubs, ensuring compliance with labour, safety, and environmental standards.
Finally, the 24-Hour Economy Authority must embed local assemblies as genuine partners by mandating district-level task forces. These task forces, with real decision-making authority and dedicated budgets, could coordinate specific 24-hour initiatives: facilitating public-private partnerships for reliable local power backups, mapping and maintaining secure night transport routes, linking local skills centres to train workers for night shifts in manufacturing and services, and collecting real-time data on economic performance to inform national adjustments.
In this way, assemblies would not merely implement policy from above but actively shape and sustain 24-hour economic activity at the grassroots.
CONCLUSION
The 24-hour economy offers Ghana a rare opportunity to break from the stop-start pattern of development. It could transform idle capital into productive assets and give young people genuine economic hope. But policies do not implement themselves. They succeed or fail through institutions, and in Ghana, the most critical institutions for everyday delivery are the local assemblies.
If we continue to treat decentralisation as an afterthought rather than a strategic necessity, the 24-hour economy will join the long list of initiatives that shone brightly in rhetoric but dimmed in practice. The choice is ours.
Strengthen local governance now, and the 24-hour economy has a fighting chance of becoming a generational success.
Neglect it, and we risk another cycle of disappointment. Ghana deserves better than managed expectations; it deserves policies that work where Ghanaians actually live and work in the districts, municipalities, and communities across our nation.
The writer, Samuel Ackom, is a Broadcast Journalist with Channel One TV and Citi FM
