Nana Akomea
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is committed to industrializing the country to help process most of the raw materials and also provide sustainable employment to the youth and help eliminate poverty.
The former communication director of the party and Managing Director of the State Transport Company (STC), Nana Akomea, who made this known at a press conference yesterday in Accra, said it was in the view of this effort that the NPP government under President Nana Akufo-Addo had adopted and implemented a major policy like ‘One District, One Factory’(1D1F).
He said industrialization was the key to accelerated development and therefore the determination of the government to put the country on the path of industrialization to move the country gradually into the league of industrialized nations.
He said so far 76 factories had been established under the NPP government’s 1D1F drive with 232 more at various stages of completion.
He explained that out of the 76 factories, 28 were completely new factories while rehabilitations, extensions and expansions had been done on 48 existing factories to increase their capacities to engage more workers and increase production.
He said the government had decided to establish all these factories through public/private partnership in order not to throw more public money into these factories and also to make them very functional and sustainable.
Mr. Akomea said the NPP government also had advanced plans to establish strategic anchor industries to produce locally 10 top imported food items into the country.
“It is the plans of the NPP government to embark on vigorous import substitution which will save us a lot of foreign exchange,” he said, stressing that importation of rice alone cost the nation over a billion dollars annually.
He said the NPP government intended to make the country the automobile hub of Africa that was why it had put in place an enabling and attractive environment for top automobile industries like Toyota, VW and others to set up subsidiary companies in the country.
He said the government was also supporting Dr. Apostle Kwadwo Safo’s ‘Katanka’ automobile company by way of waiving some taxes for the company.
He said apart the first President of the country, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who embarked on massive industrialization of the country, the NPP government under President Akufo-Addo had plans to do even more and push the country into the league of industrialized countries.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr