Keeping our agenda of industrialisation on track

In every misfortune, there is a blessing. This thought is true in view of the challenge that COVID-19 presents to us as a people and as a government.

Even the mightiest nations are on their knees and unable to produce the very basic things that they require for themselves to stop the pandemic. The situation is, therefore, a wake-up call for us as a country to push our industrialisation agenda and innovation through entrepreneurship many steps forward.

Industrialisation as we know it, is the process by which an economy is transformed from primarily agricultural to one based on the manufacturing of goods. Individual manual labour is often replaced by mechanised mass production, and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines. Characteristics of industrialisation include economic growth, more efficient division of labour, and the use of technological innovation to solve problems as opposed to dependency on conditions outside human control.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Ghana, not much has been done to leverage the opportunities that the misfortune presents. It seems that as a nation we are concentrating more on protecting lives as well as providing stimulus packages that focus on the poor and vulnerable in society.

Much as we applaud these efforts by the government, the Daily Graphic strongly believes that this is the time to relentlessly push our country’s industrialisation agenda where the private sector will be empowered to produce, starting from the basic things we need as a society.

Companies, especially those in the pharmaceutical space, have demonstrated their capacity to produce for us, some of the basic healthcare products such as personal protective equipment, to help keep our frontline and other medical staff as well as the citizenry safe from contracting the disease.

Many a time, we see shops still importing things such as tissue paper, detergents, soap among many other basic things from abroad at exorbitant prices and then they eventually pass on the cost to their customers.

The government is the biggest spender and, therefore, this is the time to demonstrate that power most forcefully to push the local industries to produce to meet our local needs.
We are aware of some stimulus package for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, we strongly think that we can do more than that to keep our agenda of industrialisation on track.

With the challenge posed by COVID-19, we also need to take advantage of the situation to encourage more of our youth to take up the challenge. It is time for them to elicit their entrepreneurial skills and sense of innovation to provide the solutions to the many problems that confront our nation.

It is a known fact that the private sector employs more than 70 per cent of the total workforce and therefore any attempt to empower the players in the sector will see them absorb more of the ballooning numbers of unemployed youth in the country.

We need to be reminded that under these compelling circumstances, industrialisation is a transformation away from an agricultural or resource-based economy, towards an economy based on mass manufacturing.

Industrialisation is usually associated with increases in total income and living standards in a society.

These are simple facts we have glossed over for many years as a country.

Fortunately, we have been presented with yet another opportunity, no matter how radical, to change our way of thinking and learn to tap into our potential and produce what we need as a people with lessons from COVID-19.

We the citizens should also be prepared to create the demand by ensuring that we patronise what we produce here in the country and reduce the imports. If we fail to do so, then all our efforts will come to nought.