79 1D1F Projects Ready For Enrollment – Bawumia

Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said about 79 projects under the government’s One-district One-factory (1D 1F) programme are expected to be rolled out by the close of the year.

Dr Bawumia, made this known at the second stakeholders’ conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration in Accra adding that, all the projects were at various stages of implementation.

He said 35 others are currently undergoing credit appraisal to enable them to receive financial support for implementation.

The three-day conference, which was organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), is on the theme: “Leveraging economic diplomacy for Ghana’s industrialization agenda”.

It was designed for the participants to share information and best practices, identify challenges faced by key stakeholders in the Ghanaian economy and proffer solutions to them.

Touching on what the government was doing to achieve its vision of a Ghana beyond aid, Dr Bawumia said a lot of work had been done in achieving strong macro-economic stability which was key to attracting trade and investment.

He said over the past 22 months “we have moved quickly to stabilize the macro-economy; we have, through the policies that have been implemented, increased economic growth from 3.7 per cent in 2016 to 8.5 per cent at end of 2017”.

On digitization, Dr Bawumia said the government was leveraging on technology to move the economy onto the next trajectory of formalisation.

He cataloged some of the initiatives, such as the introduction of a digital address system, the digitisation of passport and driving licence acquisition, a paperless goods clearing system at the ports and the digitisation of land titles.

The Vice-President also mentioned the introduction of the national identification card, which he explained would be connected with driving licence and passport to make it easy for each citizen to be uniquely identified and also enhance emergency services, as one of the significant initiatives undertaken to advance economic growth.

Throwing more light on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision of a Ghana beyond aid, the Trade Minister said: “Ghana beyond aid is about shifting the focus in our development cooperation from over-reliance on development aid towards trade and investment.

In view of that, he disclosed that the government had taken deliberate steps to formalize the economy by leveraging on technology to help propel the economy to a different level through digitization.

Some of those measures according to him includes the issuance of the National Identification Cards that would uniquely identify everybody in the country, National Digital Property Addressing System, Electronic Registration of Businesses, Paperless Ports System, National Emergency Number, Mobile Money Interoperability Payment System and e-Smart Driver and Vehicle Registration.

“These are the measures we’re undertaking to formalize the economy and propel the development of the country and give us the data that we require to move us forward as a nation,” Dr Bawumia stated.