Chairperson and leader of the Convention People’s Party, Nana Akosua Frimpomaa-Sarpong
Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong Kumankuma, has criticized the government over the implementation of the One-District, One-Factory(1D1F) initiative targeted at providing jobs for the teeming unemployed youth across the country.
The 1D1F was an idea conceived by Mr Akufo-Addo during his campaign in the lead up to the 2016 general election to build one factory in each district in the country to cater to provide decentralized jobs for the growing unemployed youth in Ghana.
But the Chair of the the CPP which chalked 72 years on June 12, said the initiative is a complete failure since government has decided to allow foreigners to own the economy by establishing the factories instead of empowering Ghanaians or the state to own the factories in the districts.
Nana Kumankuma said this in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the New Day show on TV3, Monday, June 14.
She was speaking on the back of the 72nd anniversary celebration of the CPP held in Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti Region to acquaint the youth of the party with the exploits of the party in establishing factories in that region that has been abandoned by successive governments since the overthrow of the founder and first President of Ghana Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
“We are all here and we are intelligent beings, we the current leadership we know what time or day it is, we are not saying when a factory is completely derailed, because they were truncated, it’s not like it didn’t work out, they stopped the production, looted what was there.
“Not only were they fully functional but to show you the vision and the plan, these factories were located in areas based on their raw materials. Where there were no raw materials, they were planted, like the rubber industry, the rubber industry alone in Western Region was supposed to be 75,000 but we were able to achieve only 22,000. Even that would have paid for all the 400 million we had before”, she pointed out.
She added “now, why leave the already existing raw materials-based factories and talk about 1D1F, that is, you set up a factory, you give all the tax levies and tax breaks and tax holidays, meanwhile the Ghanaian does not have the capital to set up the factories.
So do you know what you have ended up doing? You ended up thinking that the private sector is the engine of growth, so you have now ended up letting foreigners own the factories.
“1D1F is a complete failure, because has it provided jobs? What jobs? The youth are still unemployed, it’s not me talking about it, find out, do your research. So many youths on Youth Day, I saw them come to the streets, I see youth getting unemployed and they keep increasing everyday and the kind of employment they are even getting.
Yes, I believe in NABCO and anything that gives money to the youth, if the youth is not employed, give them money even if you are giving them money to sleep in their houses, you can’t just leave them to go out there to fend for themselves when there is nothing to do. It’s like saying ‘pull yourself by your booth straps’ when you don’t have any booth on, like Obama would usually say.
“So, we are saying that the young people of this country deserve much better, you can’t sit up there and read a book from a very developed country in a capitalist-oriented place and say let’s be capitalist. You know the most important thing I want government to understand is that most of the things they have benefited from to get them back into power are social intervention programmes.
It is not because they built factories, where are the factories? They haven’t created jobs, even during Kufour’s time when some of us really thought the economy was working because everybody could get a loan it collapsed. Because you know why?”