The 24-hour economy as a government policy is jinxed, reality which is visible in the continuous mutation of the model.
As a rushed entry in the run-up to the last elections, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) did not think through the policy before rushing out to the voting public to announce it, and to even incorporate it into their manifesto as a cornerstone.
It was a moniker which sounded sweet in the ears of the job-hungry Ghanaian youth and their parents who, after many years of spending money on their wards to complete their education, saw in the horizon a new dawn clothed as a 24-hour game-changer.
Time has proven however that it was all but a scam for votes.
With a wooden clock, the President displayed the multifaceted dividends to be derived from the so-called game-changer.
The job creation segment as contained in the phantom 1:3:3 presentation at a point sounded real, the confidence with which it was presented providing the convincing impetus.
Deep thinkers however could not be convinced about the sugar-coated presentation.
Time, it is said, will soon bring out the reality or otherwise of the promised Manna from the NDC.
Enter the time to implement the project and without doubt it is wobbling, multiple developments providing such evidence.
Just as when Ghanaians, especially job-hungry school leavers were expecting the shift system to be implemented, they are met with a new face of the project – 24-hour market constructions across the country, leaving the job creation magic in perpetual abeyance.
That was the first phase of the mutation. This has been preceded with demolition of existing markets, schools, places of worship and even banks in some instances to pave the way for the ghost markets in a country where such facilities close around 5 p.m. anyway, even on rural markets days.
The mutation has not ended. A couple of days ago, the newly minted Local Government Minister, Mahama Ayariga, who is also a former Majority Leader in Parliament, announced a new phase of the 24-hour market.
According to him, it is now going to be characterised by district model markets, not what we were told earlier. Whatever that means, we do not envy the work of the NDC communicators as they wade through the muddied political waters of the phantom job creation market model.
While maintaining our position that markets are demand-driven, no matter the amount of moniker changes to the policy, the whole effort will come to naught if there are no effective demands for the wares in such markets.
We are beginning to have the feeling that a policy failure is staring government in the face, a situation which must be arrested before it is too late. With no exit plan or an off-ramping available and government apprehensive of the fallouts from an outright chickening out from a project about which they have made so much cacophonous noise on the political plane, changing the name could do the magic.
A policy failure has been detected and Ghanaians are the best judges. From 24-hour job makers to markets and now district economy markets.