One District One Factory Gets GHC430 million In 2018 Budget

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he government’s flagship district industrialisation programme, One District, One Factory (1D1F) is likely to receive a GH¢430 million allocation in next year’s budget, when the Minister of Finance presents the economic policy statement to Parliament on Wednesday.

The proposed amount is slightly lower than the GH¢456.3 million budgeted for the programme in the 2017.

Under the programme, the government seeks to build an economy that will be self-sustaining and not reliant on foreign aid.

It also aims to change the structure of the economy through investments in infrastructure, agriculture, industrialisation and entrepreneurship to create jobs and increase revenue generation.

Although ambitious, the government wants to ride on the back of the private sector to implement the policy by establishing medium to large scale factories in each of the 216 districts nationwide.

The proposed GH¢430 million is, therefore, expected to be used to sort out administrative expenses and develop the structures needed to attract private sector funds into the policy.

No show in 2017

The 1D1F policy was one of the major campaign promises of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the lead up to the December 2016 general elections, which brought the party to power.

The party, led by President Akufo-Addo, said it was optimistic that the policy would create the needed jobs and reduce unemployment in the country.

To make good of their campaign promise, the government in the 2017 budget, allocated GH¢456.3 million for the implementation of the one-district one-factory policy.

However, aside a ceremony at Ekumfi in the Central Region in August this year, where the President cut the sod for the construction of the first factory under the programme, not much has been seen.

The Ekumfi Fruits and Juices Limited, the first company under the initiative is expected to be completed by the end of the year with the promise of creating over 4,000 direct jobs.