The National Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, says the government’s much-touted 24-hour economy could have been avoided if it had continued the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.
He argued that the policy, introduced under the Akufo-Addo administration, shares striking similarities with the 24-hour economy programme being pursued by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.
In a social media post on Saturday, July 5, Mr Ahiagbah noted that the implementation pace of the policy has also been slower than the urgency promised by President John Mahama during the 2024 election campaign.
“The 24-hour economy programme, launched by H.E. John Dramani Mahama, is similar to the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda that President Akufo-Addo championed. The government could have simply continued implementing that agenda instead of seeming to reinvent the wheel.
“By the way, this is not the quick-fix 24-hour economy JDM promised in 2024. We are watching and praying for Ghana,” he wrote.
His comments follow similar observations by renowned Ghanaian economist Professor Godfred Alufar Bokpin, who has called for consistency in national policy implementation.
According to Prof. Bokpin, the 24-hour economy policy bears conceptual similarities to previous national development plans, including the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda and the 2017 Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies.
“From conceptualisation to diagnosis, there isn’t much difference between this document and Ghana Beyond Aid or the coordinated programme. All of them aimed at moving the economy from dependence on primary commodities to more value addition,” Prof. Bokpin explained.
