JOBS IN DANGER (FEB 3, 2010)

GHANA’S ambition of becoming an industrial giant, at least in the West African sub-region, is increasingly coming under threat because of intense competition from imported goods.
Ghana began on a bright note after independence when the first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, embarked on an industrialisation programme to transform the economy.
The North Industrial Area in Accra derived its name from the sheer concentration of industries in that suburb of the capital.
But many of those industries have been turned into shopping centres and warehouses for cheap imports from other parts of the world.
Successive governments after the First Republic tried to sustain the industrialisation drive, improve upon it or arrest the decline. However, their efforts have yielded very little by way of result because the liberalisation policy has turned the country into a dumping ground.
Presently, our markets are flooded with all kinds of goods, including second-hand items. The shopping centres, streets and markets are all inundated with used cooking utensils, lorry tyres, clothes and electrical gadgets. Even toothpick and candies are imported.
The potential exists for sustaining growth in the industrial sector, provided consumers are prepared to patronise local products.
But the closure of Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) by its management, citing shortage of raw materials, should be a wake-up call to stakeholders to take steps to salvage sinking industries.
Until the closure of ATL, there were only three textile manufacturing companies operating at any appreciable capacity in the country, the other two being Printex Ltd and Ghana Textile Printing (GTP) Limited.
Some time ago, the country could boast many textile manufacturing companies employing thousands of workers who contributed to economic activities in the country.
The closure of ATL alone will lead to unemployment challenges in the catchment area of the manufacturing plant.
The Daily Graphic is worried about the challenges facing textile manufacturing companies in particular because the country has the potential to produce cotton to feed the industry.
We do not know what has happened to the government’s plan to revive the textile industry but we believe that the agenda is on course.
The Daily Graphic calls on it to expedite action on its planned support for cotton farmers to increase yield to feed textile industries.
Players in the textile industry have time and again complained about the importation of cheap fabrics from the Far East and the smuggling of wax prints from some neighbouring countries.
The General Secretary of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), Mr Abraham Koomson, has suggested that all seized textile materials should either be burnt or destroyed through other processes to prevent them from finding their way onto the local market to deter people from continuing to engage in smuggling, since the practice has led to the collapse of textile companies and made the state to lose billions of cedis.
We think the time has come for the country to take a bold decision to protect local industries from undue competition from cheap imported goods.
The Daily Graphic is not advocating protectionism because it may not have the immediate answers to all our problems. All the same, deliberate policies can be initiated to support industries that are key to our reconstruction efforts.
The initial cost of safeguarding local industries may be high, but when we all acknowledge the importance of our local industries to our development efforts, we will find the means to protect national assets.