Ghana’s industrial future & 24-hour agenda cannot be built through repossessions instead of production recovery.

The 24-Hour Economy agenda could fail before it begins if factories are left to collapse.

Ghana stands at a defining economic moment.

After years of economic hardship, private sector businesses across the country endured rising interest rates, currency instability, inflationary pressures, utility cost increases, and severe operational constraints. Yet despite these challenges, many Ghanaian entrepreneurs and industrial promoters continued investing heavily into factories, processing plants, machinery, warehouses, logistics, export systems, and agro-industrial infrastructure with the belief that Ghana’s industrial transformation agenda would eventually materialize.

Today, the Government’s reset agenda and the vision of a 24-Hour Economy have restored hope to many industries.

However, there is an uncomfortable contradiction emerging within Ghana’s economic recovery narrative. A contradiction that many industry players are becoming increasingly afraid to speak about openly

Factories cannot operate for 24 hours without raw materials, operational support and strategic financing ecosystems.

This is why there is growing concern over the current direction and operational posture of Ghana EXIM Bank.

The Ghana EXIM Bank was not established merely as a recovery institution or collateral enforcement institution. It was established under the Ghana Export-Import Bank Act, 2016 (Act 911) specifically to promote exports, support industrialization, finance agro-processing, facilitate value addition, support SMEs, provide guarantees, and drive Ghana’s export-led transformation agenda.

Its mandate is developmental.

Its mandate is transformational.

Its mandate is national.

Yet, many private sector players believe the institution is drifting away from that developmental mandate and increasingly focusing on repossessions and recoveries instead of restructuring, production recovery, raw material ecosystem development, and industrial growth support.

This concern deserves urgent national attention because Ghana risks entering a dangerous phase where development finance institutions begin behaving more like asset recovery agencies than strategic industrial growth partners.

Across Ghana today, many factories already possess installed processing capacity capable of creating tens of thousands of jobs. Significant capital expenditure has already been committed to industrial infrastructure. In many cases, the challenge is no longer factory construction, but rather inadequate raw material financing systems, weak operational support structures, and the absence of coordinated industrial ecosystem financing.

The next phase of Ghana’s industrialization must therefore focus aggressively on:

1. Raw material production.
2. Outgrower systems
3. Irrigation
4. Aggregation
5. Logistics
6. Farmer financing
7. Warehouse systems
8. And operational guarantees for processors.

This is precisely where a development bank like EXIM Bank should play its strongest role.

How Current Approaches Defeat the “Feed The Industries” Policy and 24-Hour Economy Vision

The Government’s proposed 24-Hour Economy and “Feed The Industries” agenda cannot succeed if productive industries are pushed toward collapse instead of recovery.

The entire concept behind “Feed The Industries” is to ensure that factories operate continuously through reliable raw material supply systems, expanded agricultural production, aggregation, logistics, and industrial coordination. It is meant to connect farms directly to factories, factories to exports, and exports to national growth.

However, when development institutions prioritize repossession over restructuring and operational support, the entire industrial chain becomes destabilized.

A factory under foreclosure cannot confidently contract farmers.

A distressed processor cannot expand outgrower schemes.

Banks and investors become reluctant to support production ecosystems.

Youth employment programs linked to agriculture and processing become weakened.

Farmer confidence drops because markets become uncertain.

Processing plants begin operating far below capacity.

Exports decline.

The 24-Hour Economy then risks becoming a policy slogan instead of a functioning industrial reality.

What Ghana needs now is production activation — not productive asset liquidation.

Many industrial promoters invested into factories based on the expectation that Ghana’s industrial policy direction would progressively support local production ecosystems and raw material development. Several processors already possess installed capacities capable of operating continuously if supported with stable raw material supply systems and working capital structures.

If these businesses are instead subjected primarily to recoveries and repossessions without practical restructuring pathways, the country risks destroying the very productive assets needed to anchor the 24-Hour Economy agenda.

And once productive capacity collapses, rebuilding it becomes far more expensive than protecting.

EXIM Bank Must Complement the Central Bank’s Efforts to Expand the Real Sector

At a time when the Bank of Ghana continues efforts toward monetary stability and lower interest rates to stimulate economic activity, EXIM Bank must strategically complement these efforts by aggressively supporting the productive and export sectors of the economy.

Lower interest rates alone cannot drive industrial growth if industries lack access to operational financing, raw material guarantees, export credit support, and recovery frameworks.

The real sector requires activation.

Factories require throughput.

Farmers require guaranteed markets.

Exporters require structured financing support.

This is precisely why EXIM Bank was created and equipped with multiple instruments capable of supporting industrial transformation, including:

1. export financing
2. Guarantees
3. Trade finance
4. Working capital support
5. Export credit systems
6. Raw material financing structures
7. Value chain support
8. And strategic industrial partnerships.

If these instruments are deployed aggressively and strategically alongside the Government’s 24-Hour Economy agenda, Ghana could experience rapid expansion in:

Industrial production

Exports

Agro-processing

Youth employment

Foreign exchange earnings

And rural economic activity

This is the moment for coordinated economic policy.

The Central Bank cannot stabilize the economy only for productive industries to collapse due to weak development financing alignment.

EXIM Bank should therefore become one of the strongest institutional vehicles for translating macroeconomic stability into real sector growth, export expansion, and sustainable employment creation.

Globally, successful development finance institutions rarely prioritize repossession as a primary strategy when dealing with productive industries and strategic national assets. Institutions such as development banks across Asia, Latin America, Europe, and parts of Africa often resort first to:

1. Restructuring
2. Equity participation
3. Operational guarantees
4. Working capital support
5. Technical interventions
6. Strategic partnerships
7. And long-term recovery frameworks designed to protect jobs, preserve productive assets, and sustain exports.

This is because development banks recognize that industrial promoters are not merely borrowers.

They are national economic partners.

They carry employment burdens.

They carry export obligations.

They carry tax responsibilities.

They absorb operational risks.

They build productive capacity for the nation.

When factories fail, entire ecosystems collapse — farmers lose markets, transporters lose contracts, youth lose jobs, exports decline, and government loses tax revenues and foreign exchange opportunities.

Repossessing a factory may recover collateral value, but restructuring a factory can recover an economy.

This is why many industry stakeholders are respectfully calling on the President to directly intervene and demand accountability, engagement, and measurable developmental outcomes from EXIM Bank leadership.

The President must request clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the institution, including:

How many factories have been successfully revived?

How many export-oriented businesses have been scaled?

How many jobs have been protected or created?

How much raw material production financing has been deployed?

How many industrial restructuring frameworks have been successfully implemented?

What percentage of interventions, support operational recovery instead of enforcement?

How many distressed but viable businesses have been transitioned into sustainable recovery models?

How much value addition capacity has been activated under the 24-Hour Economy vision?

These are the metrics that define a development finance institution.

Not simply the number of foreclosures executed.

The President should also directly engage existing industrial operators, visit factories, meet agro-processors, and hear firsthand from businesses that have continued to sacrifice and invest despite difficult economic conditions.

Many businesses have reportedly submitted proposals focused on the “Feed The Industries Project,” an initiative capable of rapidly increasing raw material production, activating idle processing capacity, and supporting the Government’s job creation objectives.

Industry estimates suggest that if coordinated support is provided immediately, more than 60,000 jobs could be created before the end of this year through expanded raw material production, processing activation, aggregation, logistics, and export support. Within 24 months, the figure could exceed 200,000 jobs if Ghana aggressively supports industrial expansion and ecosystem financing.

The infrastructure already exists.

The factories already exist.

The entrepreneurs already sacrificed.

The opportunities already exist.

What is now needed is institutional alignment with national development priorities.

At this stage of Ghana’s economic recovery, development banking must move beyond collateral enforcement and evolve into strategic industrial partnership.

Ghana cannot build a successful 24-Hour Economy by liquidating productive capacity.

The country must protect and grow its productive assets.

Mr. President, this is the time to ensure that EXIM Bank fully returns to the spirit and purpose of its establishment under Act 911 — as a true engine of industrial transformation, export growth, production recovery, and national job creation.

Otherwise, Ghana risk celebrating macroeconomic stability while quietly losing the productive industries needed to sustain it.