The Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana (CAG) has desccribed, the One District One Factory (1D1F) programme which was a flagship industrialization plan, as a policy failure.
The Chamber made the declaration after it conducted a comprehensive review of the programme, and called for the urgent establishment of a National Industries Development and Regulatory Authority to prevent the recurrence of failed industrial policies to position the country for genuine industrial transformation.
CEO, CAG, Anthony S. K. Morrison, said though 1D1F was presented to Ghanaians as the nation’s industrial breakthrough, promising job creation, enhanced competitiveness, import substitution, and export growth, the program has instead entrenched high-cost production, debt distress, and widespread factory under-utilization.
“Our assessment reveals that 1D1F constitutes not merely a policy failure, but an economic misstep that weakened Ghana’s industrial sector rather than strengthening it. The program claimed to support industry while creating a policy environment that made industrial production more expensive, riskier, and less competitive” he noted.
A statement issued by the Chamber, asserts that the most damaging flaw of the 1D1F programme was the cost of capital.
It says industrial firms accessed financing at rates ranging from 22 – 47 percent, including fees, foreign exchange exposure, rollovers, and compounding.
These rates, CAG maintains, are fundamentally incompatible with industrial development, particularly in agro-processing sectors that require five to seven years to stabilize and operate with assets having 15 to 25 year lifespans, noting, “at such rates, debt service overwhelms cash flow before economies of scale can be achieved.”
Mr Morrison disclosed that successful industrializing nations provide manufacturing finance at three to eight percent. For instance, China’s policy banks offer three to five percent for strategic industries. Vietnam provides five to seven percent for export-oriented manufacturing.
India’s MUDRA scheme finances MSMEs at seven to eight percent. Rwanda’s development finance operates at five to ten percent with extended grace periods.
However, Ghana’s 22 to 47 percent rates make industrial competitiveness mathematically impossible.
CAG concluded that industrialization cannot succeed when financed at rates between 22 and 47 percent, burdened by bureaucratic complexity, and unsupported by skills development and local content frameworks.
According to the Chamber, the 1D1F programme failed because capital was priced like speculation, incentives were diluted, value chains were ignored, productivity capabilities were overlooked, and political considerations overrode economic logic.
“Factories alone do not create competitiveness. Affordable capital, secure inputs, streamlined regulations, skilled workforces, and patient, evidence-based policy do”.
The Chamber noted that by achievement, the 1D1F programme only established physical industrial infrastructure in districts that previously had none, and elevated industrialization as a national priority and generated public discourse about manufacturing’s role in economic development.
Though some factories achieved operational stability and contributed minimally to the local economy, however, the programme only demonstrated political will to pursue industrial policy, a necessary precondition for any transformation agenda.
By recommendation, the CAG calls for the immediate establishment of a National Industries Development and Regulatory Authority with the mandate to ensure industrial financing aligns with international development finance standards, coordinate raw material value chains before factory commissioning, including contract farming, production zoning, and input supply systems.
The proposed Authority will also implement comprehensive local content policies and competitive incentive frameworks that prioritize indigenous industrial start-ups, develop skills programmes aligned with industry needs for sustainable productivity, streamline regulatory processes across agencies through single-window clearance systems among other key interventions.
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