Huge investor interest in 'one district, one factory'

The New Patriotic Party government’s “One District One Factory” programme, which is scheduled to be launched next month, has received tremendous response from various investors across the globe, the National Coordinator of the policy, Gifty Ohene-Konadu, has revealed.

The New Patriotic Party government’s “One District One Factory” programme, which is scheduled to be launched next month, has received tremendous response from various investors across the globe, the National Coordinator of the policy, Gifty Ohene-Konadu, has revealed.

“Development agencies are exploring ways they can possibly provide support, and foreign companies are knocking at our doors to find out possible areas of investment opportunities within the districts. Political parties are monitoring and watching how well or bad we perform on this project. Hence, this is one project that the whole nation has extremely high expectations of,” she stated.

Speaking at a Stakeholders’ Engagement Seminar at the Alisa Hotel in Accra yesterday, she said her Secretarial had been inundated with calls from companies seeking to partner government for the implementation of the programme.

Mrs Ohene-Konadu reiterated the determination of the President to bring the ‘One District, One Factory’ policy vision into reality.

“He made this vision of the statement during his campaign for the high office; he is determined to bring this vision into reality, not because it is a campaign promise but because he strongly believes that it is the best approach to spread development across the country,” she stressed.

She added that the ultimate objective of the project was to promote industrial development across the country with the view to creating jobs and discouraging rural urban migration.

She also mentioned that her Secretariat was excited about the eagerness and the enthusiasm of the private sector to get involved and contribute to the success of the project.

“Today, the ‘One District, One Factory’ concept has also become a national cliché. Everybody talks about it. A lot of institutions are aligning their programmes to it. The private sector is talking about it and seeking information on how the best they can participate,” Mrs Ohene-Konadu stressed.

Whilst expressing confidence that they would not disappoint stakeholders but work hard to achieve the vision of President Nana Akufo-Addo, the national coordinator admonished everyone to play their respective roles effectively to support the implementation of the project.

According to her, the project Coordinating Office would develop different interventions to address different needs of the businesses wanting to establish factories in the districts.

“For some, the needs could be marketing, for others it may be raw material supplies, others could be marketing, for others it could be land acquisition and complying with local laws, and yet for others could be finance, business linkages etc. Some may require minor intervention since they may have the capacity to set up factories without much support. Others may require active and bigger support,” Mrs Ohene-Konadu avowed.

She was, however, quick to stress that the ‘One District, One Policy’ was not a finance scheme but an industrial promotion project, and therefore enterprises should not apply with the sole aim of obtaining finance.

“Financial intervention may be part of the service but it will only be a small part of the service,” she outlined, adding that the Secretariat had learnt lessons from previous models developed to industrialize to the country which did not yield any positive results.

“The presentation on investment framework that we present to you today will indicate to you that we will not do business as usual. The old method of releasing funds directly to an entrepreneur from a ministry and a secretariat would not happen again because the desired impact was not realized under the scheme,” she said.

Throwing more light on the policy, Mrs Ohene-Konadu explained that the project would operate on sustainable basis and that government through the coordinating office would only play a facilitation role.

“It is the reason why we have asked the AGI’s active involvement at this early stage, we sincerely acknowledge the role the Association of Ghana Industries has played so far, we expect even more active involvement of the association and its members at the national and also the regional and district levels since it is the umbrella groupings of the Ghanaians Industries, comprising companies in the manufacturing service, and the oil and gas sectors,” she stated.

She continued, “In the end, the measure of performance will not be the noise we make, it will not be the number of the activities we have embarked on. Rather, people will judge us on the basis quality of business we have helped establish, number of sustainable jobs we have created, improvement in the lives of people in the rural communities, reduction of rural urban migration a strong foundation for industrial development in the districts and Ghana and the overall impact of the project on the economic development of Ghana.”