The National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, popularly known as General Mosquito, has dismissed the commentaries about the proposed 24-hour economy by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Asiedu Nketiah says the party is only engaged in blowing hot air.
According to him, the NPP’s reaction suggests that they are caught off guard by the policy and that it has unsettled them.
“Our opponents are only blowing hot air. This is because, that policy appears to have taken them by storm and so, their reactions suggest that their days are numbered. This is not a complicated policy to adopt or implement at all,” he said in an interview on Joy News which was monitored by GhanaWeb.
Asiedu Nketiah explained that Ghana currently is disadvantaged when it comes to global competition because almost all the advanced economies are operating 24 hours around the clock.
This, he said, has brought about a disconnect between Ghana and the rest of the world.
For this reason, the NDC national chairman said, the country needs to implement a 24-hour economy.
“Let me bring a few aspects down to the level of the public, so they understand where we are coming from. When you take industries in Europe and many other places, they operate 24 hours and we are operating 8 hours.
“We are supposed to produce and compete with somebody who is utilising his infrastructure for 24 hours. So, from the beginning, there is a disconnect that makes us uncompetitive, if you just look at it from the surface. So, what we are saying is that there is already some infrastructure that is being underutilised,” he added.
The 24-hour economy proposal was initially announced by the NDC’s flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, who emphasised its potential to create jobs for the youth by allowing companies and organisations to operate around the clock.
The NPP, led by its flagbearer Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, countered by claiming that a 24-hour economy already exists, challenging the novelty of the NDC’s proposal.
Source: ghanaweb.com
