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18.08.2011 Editorial

Killing Local Initiatives

By Daily Graphic
Killing Local Initiatives
18.08.2011 LISTEN

Over the years, the marketing of locally manufactured goods has been a major problem to many Ghanaian manufacturers and the catchword used has been to urge Ghanaians to patronise made-in-Ghana goods.

But the campaign has not been catching on well except in the case of very few locally manufactured goods.

To a large extent, Ghanaians do not appreciate goods which are manufactured locally and this aversion to locally manufactured goods is predicated on the fact that foreign goods are of very high quality and no matter the price Ghanaians will patronise them to the detriment of those manufactured locally.

Somehow Ghanaians believe that anything from the foreign land is good but in many instances we are mistaken.

This attitude of ours leaves very much to be desired, especially in the country’s quest to attain a middle-income status and improve the living standards of the people.

Many reasons account for this negative trend of affairs but chiefly among these is the high cost of production resulting in high cost of goods, and the low standard of goods produced coupled with the non-compliance with standards prescribed by our own Ghana Standards Board.

So even if there is a cheaper substitute for a locally manufactured good from a country outside the shores of this country Ghanaians will scramble for it. The net effect of our action is that we indirectly put money into the pockets of these foreign producers to develop their countries rather than ours.

It is against this backdrop that the Daily Graphic regrets the appalling state in which one of the local initiatives — the Pozzolana Cement Factory at Gomoa Mprumem in the Central Region — finds itself. It is on the verge of collapse because Ghanaians have refused to accept their own by patronising the product.

The factory uses local inputs to manufacture at very reasonable prices and has the potential to provide jobs for the youth. Now the company is laying off its workforce because it is finding it difficult to market its produce and about 40,000 bags of the cement are locked up in the warehouse.

Since the commencement of its operation in March, this year, the company says that it has not been able to market 30,000 bags of cement, which is a commodity in very high demand in Ghana.

What is more, the company is currently owned by a foreigner because when the chance was offered to Ghanaians to own it nobody came forward to take that offer even at a ridiculously low price of $10,000. What this means is that in the future should the fortunes of this company improve it is the foreign investor who will benefit from the investment.

The investor can also sell the right of production if he or she finds that Ghana is not a suitable place to do business.

The Daily Graphic calls on the company owners not to relent in their efforts but to pursue extensive marketing drive to make Ghanaians patronise the product. We also urge the government to intervene either by offering some tax reliefs to the company or making it compulsory for government contracts to be executed with Pozzalona cement.

By our attitude we are killing local initiative so let us patronise locally manufactured goods in order to build our national economy. It is only Ghanaians who can build this country.

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