Government has announced that it will scrap the 1 District 1 Factory initiative started by the Akufo-Addo administration.
The initiative was aimed at industrializing the country’s economy by giving incentives to private manufacturing companies to expand or set up.
The Akufo-Addo administration had touted the initiative as a success, stating that it had created thousands of jobs for Ghanaians.
But media investigations revealed some of the factories either shut down due to lack of raw materials or market. Others started by the government itself were also abandoned.
Further investigations also uncovered that the government was abusing the tax exemption component of the initiative by giving such exemptions to non-manufacturing companies such as hotels.
Presenting the 2025 Budget and Economic policy, Minister of Finance Cassiel Ato Forson said the government will scrap the initiative to “cut wasteful expenditures on inefficient and duplicative programmes to reduce expenditure under the fiscal consolidation programme”.
He further announced the cancellation of the YouStart, a programme that supports youth and youth-led businesses and the GhanaCARES programme as part of what he said is cutting wasteful expenditures.
The GhanaCARES programme was launched in 2020 as a response to the debilitating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was aimed at reviving the economy was scheduled to be implemented in two phases.
The first phase known as the stabilization phase was supposed to be implemented from July to the end of 2020. The second phase; also known as revitalization phase would have run from 2021 to 2023. This programme should have been completed more than a year ago.
