Ghanaians deserve a straight answer to a simple question: who owns the 24-Hour Markets Project? Because right now, we have three different stories.
What is being built: Since January this year, the government has been rolling out “24-Hour Economy Markets” across the country, starting with 11 municipalities and districts in the Upper West Region alone. These projects have been publicly branded, launched, and defended as flagship deliveries under the 24-Hour Economy agenda, the same agenda this government swept into office promising in 2024.
What the programme document actually says: The 24H+ Programme document, the Presidency’s own 287-page blueprint for the 24-Hour Economy, makes exactly ONE specific commitment to round-the-clock markets: 24/7 fish markets, under the fisheries value chain (GROW24).
There is no broad, costed, cross-cutting commitment in that document to build 24-hour markets nationwide. Yet market construction has been marketed to the public as central to this same programme.
What the Presidential Adviser is now saying:
On August 19, Mr. Goosie Tanoh, the Presidential Adviser on the 24-Hour Economy, told the press, “The 24-Hour Markets Project is not our responsibility. We are not into development of markets. We don’t know anything about that.”
He went further, revealing his outfit has been named in lawsuits over market demolitions and is now moving to get the secretariat’s name off those suits, insisting the project belongs to the Ministry of Local Government and is funded through the District Assemblies Common Fund.
Our question to Ghanaians is simple:
If the 24-Hour Economy Secretariat has “no jurisdiction” over 24-hour markets, why has this project been marketed under the 24-Hour Economy brand for over a year?
Who authorised the demolitions communities are now suing over? Which budget line, which ministry, and which minister are actually accountable for these markets, and do Parliament and the Public Accounts and Finance Committees have visibility into how District Assemblies Common Fund resources are being applied to this project?
The government cannot claim the political credit for “24-Hour Markets” as a signature delivery of its flagship programme, and then have its own chief adviser disown it the moment demolitions and lawsuits land on the table
Ghanaians were promised transformation. They deserve to know who is actually driving it.
Source: Michael Okyere Baafii
