Last week, President John Mahama gave an international audience his assurance that his promised 24 hour economy is fully on course for the benefit of Ghana and its populace. This assurance has come against the back drop of doubts arising among some segments of the Ghanaian society – particularly the political opposition – over whether the incumbent administration will be able to implement the policy which was a key election promise on which it swept into power after the December 2024 general elections.
We want to believe that the Mahama administration is indeed still fully committed to implemented its promised 24 hour economy policy despite the slower than generally anticipated speed of progress towards is commencement.
To be sure, critics have grounds to comment on what they see as foot-dragging by government at best, and outright inability to fulfill its election promise at worst. However, the real problem here arises from the mismanagement of the general populace’s expectations by government, exacerbated by deliberate politicking by the political opposition to discredit it.
A 24 hour economy initiative is not one that can be switched on like a light switch; it involves complex logistics with regards to public sector service support, legislative amendments and ultimately the collaboration of the private sector which will be the ultimate implementers of the initiative. All of this requires time to navigate and the only major fault of the Mahama administration has been its failure to enlighten stakeholders as to the inevitable staged preparations required for its implementation.
Actually though, government seems to have underestimated the complexities involved. For instance, its game plan envisages subsidized power to enterprises that sign up to participate in the policy, but revelations of the dire financial state of the energy sector value chain suggests this will be very difficult to offer.
However, we are aware that concrete progress is being made, under the guidance of Goosie Tanoh and his team, towards establishing a framework for the 24 hour economy and bringing into force. So now is the time to publicize the efforts made so far, enlighten stakeholders on what is left and the work plan for doing them, and give feasible timelines for getting the initiative up and running.
Meanwhile it is important that the initiative should not be derailed by sheer politicking, a danger that is real in Ghana’s inordinately partisan political arena. For instance, when the outgone Nana Akufo-Addo administration introduced the One District One Factory (1D1F) initiative in 2016, the National Democratic Congress – then in opposition – sought to rubbish it even before the then government jeopardized an otherwise excellent policy initiative by focusing inordinately on using it as a lever for granting tax waivers for favoured enterprises who declared their intention to participate.
As with the 1D1F in its well – intentioned original form, the 24 hour economy has the clear potential to be pivotal towards creating direly needed jobs, generating a quantum leap in Ghana’s economic productivity and providing a major increase in tax revenues for the cash-deficient government. However, for it to work, the political opposition needs to avoid the temptation to try and shoot it down to score political points. And government itself needs to implement it tidily, rather than simply speedily, offering a level playing field for enterprises genuinely seeking to take advantage of its potentials.
