Negative Effects Of Importation In Ghana

NEWS COMMENTARY ON THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF IMPORTATION ON THE GHANAIAN INDUSTRIAL SECTOR
Over the years, many scholars have expressed divergent views about Africa’s industrialization drive. Some held the assertion that the only way Africa’s economy can grow is by producing more locally manufactured products. For decades, governments of Ghana have attempted to improve the country’s economy by encouraging the setting up of small scale industries such as the Komenda Sugar Factory, Pwalugu Tomato factory and the Kumasi shoe factory. These factories have not helped in transforming the indutrial sector of the economy.
While some are in bad state others have collapsed. Ghanaians and Africans as a whole do not value most locally manufactured products. For example, when one visits the Kumasi shoe factory, shoes are parked in various categories but people don’t even ask of the price. That is the attitude of the Ghanaian. Previous and current governments have not laid much emphasis on limiting importation into the country, a situation which has affected the growth of the industrial sector.
This brings to mind President Akufo Addo’s one district one factory initiative. How has the initiative impacted the indistrial sector in the last two years? Most Ghanaians are yet to feel the impact of the said industry. It is a known fact that if a country imports more than it exports it runs a trade deficit. If it imports less than it exports, that creates a trade surplus.
When a country has a trade deficit, it must borrow from other countries to pay for the extra imports. A country should not continue to borrow to finance its trade deficit. At some point, a matured economy should become a net exporter. Imports make a country dependent on other countries’ political and economic power especially if it imports commodities, such as food, oil, and industrial materials. This is not an ideal way of growing an economy.
The question is what measures have the government put in place to check importation since it assumed power two years ago? Government must make conscious efforts at encouraging citizens to value and patronise locally manufactured products? In fact, too much importation is retarding the country’s economic growth and development. This is not to say that importation is bad, however, it should be done strategically.
Until government restricts the importation of some products and Ghanaians patronize locally manufactured products, the one district one factory projects may not produce the needed result as has been the case of some previous factories. It is our prayer that something drastic will be done in the remaining years of President Akufo Addo to revolutionarise the industrial sector.
BY MUSTAPHA SOFO, A POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA.