The CEO of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), Mark Badu Aboagye, says Ghana’s unemployment crisis could have been significantly reduced if the One District One Factory (1D1F) policy had been properly implemented.

Speaking on PM Express on Joy News, he said the country does not lack well-designed policies, but continues to struggle with execution.

“Interesting listening to the two politicians from the two sides. Well-documented policies, well-articulated policies, but implementation has always been the challenge. The things that he said about the 24-Hour economy and 1D1F all need a private sector to implement them,” he said.

He revealed that engagement between the private sector and policymakers has begun, although discussions are still ongoing.

“Obviously, there’s always an engagement for us to understand what it is, for us to understand the role that we will play, and all those things.

"Last Friday, we were actually supposed to meet Gossie Tannoh, but I think he travelled. So okay, so we have had that engagement with them,” he noted.

But Mr Aboagye stressed that engagement alone is not enough, insisting that the real issue lies in implementation.

“But when it comes to policies, as I said, it is implementation, the 1D1F. It’s been said that it was a very brilliant policy. If governments had even implemented just 50% of it, all these employment issues would have been solved,” he stated.

He argued that the government cannot, by itself, address the country’s unemployment problem, pointing to the private sector's dominant role in job creation.

“There is no way government alone can solve the unemployment problem we have. Government employs just 6% of the total labour.

For just 6%, the 94% or so is being employed by the private sector. So just create the right environment…So it’s the private sector that we must empower. We must create the right conditions,” he said.

On the proposed 24-hour economy, Mr Aboagye said the idea is not new in terms of rhetoric, as similar claims have been made about private sector leadership in the past.

“That is what they always say, it is private sector-driven. And, of course, it should be private sector-driven. But what incentives are they providing?” he questioned.

He cited the 1D1F policy as an example in which incentives were introduced but did not fully achieve their intended impact.

“We had a similar incentive with 1D1F, where they say, if you go for a facility, we’ll pay a percentage of the interest. So the collateral point he talks about, it was also built into 1D1F, let’s say the policies are brilliant, it is the implementation,” he explained.

Mr Aboagye also raised concerns about access to funding under such programmes, suggesting that the intended beneficiaries may not have fully benefited.

“And obviously, you get some political undertones. And people who can assess this funding, the real private sector people find out from them, whether they were able to get some of this funding,” he said.

He warned that without addressing these gaps, new policy proposals risk suffering the same fate.

“So to solve this problem, it shouldn’t be just a political slogan and say, 24-hour economy. They are a brilliant idea. But how is the private sector taking it up? I think that to be able to solve this, one approach is also to look at our investors,” he added.