Akufo-Addo worried on growing power crisis, says Ghana loses 2% of GDP yearly
Following a new report released by the Institute for Social Statistics and Economic Research (ISSER) on electricity crisis, Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed worry that the nation lost $680 million in 2014 alone equivalent to two per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
This is as the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) also hinted that members’ loss over 10 per cent of their target contribution to the GDP on annual basis.
Akufo-Addo while reviewing the report on Tuesday, said the four years of power crisis led to a loss of more than three billion dollars in economic activities and in the process thousands of Ghanaians lost their jobs.
According to him, “The debilitating power crisis brought many small and medium-scale enterprises to their knees, which was induced by the mismanagement of the energy sector by the previous government”.
Explaining more during the opening of the Second Edition of the National Policy Summit, in Accra, on the theme, ‘The Industrial Transformation of Ghana’, Akufo-Addo noted that the industrial sector suffered one of the significant setbacks in the history of Ghana over the period.
Just as he averred that in 2008, the New Patriotic Party government under President John Agyekum Kufuor achieved an industrial growth of 15.1 per cent but slumped to 0.8 per cent in 2014he observed that in 2015, the industrial sector recorded a negative 0.3 per cent and further down to negative 1.4 per cent in 2016, whilst the manufacturing sector recorded negative growth of -2 per cent in 2015.
However, he was upbeat that the new 10-point agenda to transform the industrial sector of the economy that would create job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youth and ensure prosperity for all Ghanaians is underway by his administration.
The President revealed that part of the industrial agenda programmes, anchored on building competitive businesses of existing local industries by facilitating access to medium and long term financing at low interest rate and implementing the One District, One Factory initiative will bring industrialisation to the doorsteps of the people.
He added that his administration is already introducing strategic anchor industrial initiatives to create new growth poles for the Ghanaian economy, establishment of industrial parks and special economic zones in at least one of the ten regions (One Region, One Park) and promoting small and medium-scale enterprise development and establishment of an industrial sub-contracting expo that would link a certain need of supply chain of large-scale enterprises.
