Alan Cash Faces Parliament Over 1D1F

Members of Parliament yesterday, Thursday, verbally grilled Trade and Industry, Minister Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten on a number of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government initiatives notably the flagship One District, One Factory (1D1F) policy and related issues.

In all, a total of 473 private entities presented business proposals to government for consideration out of which One hundred and ninety-one (191) covering 102 districts, have been selected for execution.

462 out of the 473 proposals were subjected to an evaluation process by a consultancy firm to ascertain their technical, financial and commercial viability analysis before the 191 were selected for take-off.

Mr. Kyerematen, also known as ‘Alan Cash’, gave the disclosure on the floor of Parliament yesterday in a response to a question filed by MP for Cape Coast South, George Kweku Rickets-Hagan seeking to know the implementation plan and take off time of the 1D1F policy.

The Minister gave an assurance that a detailed project implementation report was being developed by the consultant and once that was done, the project would take off.

The implementation framework includes reviewing the existing profiles of the natural resource endowment of each district, identify business promoters and investors and holding consultative meetings with leaders of local assemblies, Members of Parliament and other relevant stakeholders in each beneficiary area.

Other elements of the implementation framework according to the Minister includes establishing district support teams, mobilise technical and financial support for the selected district enterprise projects and monitor status of implementation of each district enterprise project against key performance indicators.

Mr. Kyeremanten however could not provide how much government was committing to the project since the programme is public sector driven initiative whiles government facilitates its effective execution.

He also disclosed that government would take up the imitative to establish factories in the remaining 114 assemblies if no proposals are received concerning them.

The former flag-bearer aspirant of the NPP disclosed that two firms have expressed interest to establish an organic fertilizer and a sugar and plantation companies in the Kumbungu area of the Northern region.

This was in response to a question posed by Member of Parliament for the area, Ras Mubarak on when his Constituency will benefit from the policy.

The 1D1F is an industrial transformational agenda of the NPP government designed to set up at least a medium to large scale industrial enterprise in each of the 216 districts of the country.

Government through the policy seeks to address the challenge of severe poverty and underdevelopment among peri-urban and rural communities by attracting private sector investments in rural development.

In a related development, the Trade and Industry Minister also answered question on measures for the re-start of the Komenda sugar factory, the status of the Made- in- Ghana’ initiative, the prioritizing the purchase of made- in- Ghana goods and services.

Source: Christian Kpesese/ thePublisher