The Minister-designate for trade and Industry, Alan Kyeremanteng, has intimated that, 139,331 have been created under the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) program by the government since its inception.
Appearing before the Appointments committee today, February 26, 2021, Mr. Kyeremanteng posited that, the initiative has created direct and indirect employment and disclosed that additional jobs have also been projected.
“Through the intervention, a total of 139,331 direct and indirect jobs have been created by the 76 companies and 285,915 additional direct and indirect jobs are projected from the projects that are under construction.”
Alan Kyeremanteng
Mr. Kyeremanteng also said the initiative has helped reduce the number of youth unemployment in the country, describing it as one of the most revolutionary interventions in the country so far since Ghana’s independence.
“It is appropriate for me to indicate that the One District, One Factory initiative, which has been led by the Ministry of Trade and Industry is one of the most revolutionary interventions to have been introduced in our country since independence. It goes to the core of bringing industry and development to the doorsteps of ordinary people and that is why we pursued this whole programme with aggression.”
Alan Kyeremanteng
He also noted that, out of the 232 companies, 76 are fully operating as 1D1F, 107 projects are at various stages of completion and 49 projects will commence construction in the first half of the year.
“So far, 56% of those companies are into agro-processing projects, 22% are into general manufacturing, 5% are into meat processing, 4% are into general agriculture and there are other industrial enterprises which constitute 13%.”
According to Mr. Kyeremanteng, contrary to critics that the government is rebranding existing factories, the plan of the program allows for roping in existing factories unto the program.
“Currently, we have 232 1D1F projects that are at various stages of implementation and contrary to criticism that the government is roping in existing companies, indeed whiles the program implementation framework allows for existing companies to be 1D1F companies, when you look at the statistics, out of the 232 companies only 64 were existing companies.”
Alan Kyeremanteng
He also said through the 1D1F initiative, government has been able to mobilize GHC2billion from local financial institutions. He said government has provided interest subsidies support of GHC213million to de-risk the project for the banks.
“In addition to that GHC603 million imports duties have been exemptions that has been granted to 37 1D1F companies.”
Speaking on how the country will leverage on the new development at the World Trade Organization, which has seen the first female and an African become its director and also coming at a time that Ghana is facilitating the African Free Continental Trade Area (AFCTA) to help the trade and its related activities in the country, he averred that, the country is working towards the same goal as the WTO and will work in that regard.
“The fact that the Director-General of the WTO is an African, provides the opportunity for us as Africans to embark on this initiative of liberalizing trade between ourselves. We have to use the collaboration between ourselves as a launching pad to enhance our participation in the global market superintendent by the WTO.”
Alan Kyeremanteng
