The Ministry of Education has flouted President John Dramani Mahama’s policy on made-in-Ghana products.<\/p>\n
The Ministry is importing fabrics from China for government’s free school uniform programme for de\u00adprived pupils in basic schools,\u00a0\u00a0rendering a contractual agreement with Printex Ghana Limited, one of the local textile manufacturing companies, to supply the fabric useless.<\/p>\n
Equipment worth millions of dollars which the company purchased to re\u00adtool its equipment in anticipation of the continuous production of the uniforms now lie idle.<\/p>\n
The action of the Ministry of Educa\u00adtion contradicts promises made by gov\u00adernment to revamp the local textile industry to make it competitive and a major driver for youth employment.<\/p>\n
Government in 2009 made it a pol\u00adicy to empower local textile manufac\u00adturing companies by procuring all its fabric needs from local manufacturers.<\/p>\n
A few years down the line, govern\u00adment seems to have abandoned the local textile manufacturing companies, who have sunk huge sums of monies into retooling and installing new ma\u00adchines to meet the new demand, to pro\u00adcure the uniforms from China.<\/p>\n
Late last month, the Greater Accra Regional Directorate of the Ghana Ed\u00aducation Service released sets of uni\u00adforms to schools in Metropolitan, Municipality and District Assemblies for onward distribution to pupils in the region.<\/p>\n
The development has sent tongues wagging among the local textile manu\u00adfacturing industry, many of who are questioning the government’s commit\u00adment to grow the local industry if it continues to import cheap fabric from China at the expense of a collapsing local textile manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n
In August 2009, President John Mahama, then Vice-President, at a meeting with the Association of Ghana Indus\u00adtries and the Textile, Garment and Leather Union, stated government’s re\u00adsolve to procure all materials for the free school uniform project and subse\u00adquently extend it to other institutions such as the police, military and para\u00admilitary institutions throughout the country.<\/p>\n
This assurance compelled the local industries to invest heavily into machin\u00adery to meet the demand, but all that is rusting away as government has re\u00adneged on its promise, leading to huge investments made by some textile com\u00adpanies sitting idle.<\/p>\n
The Finder is informed that govern\u00adment, after conducting an initial assess\u00adment of the local manufacturers’ capacity to meet its demand, was over\u00adwhelmed by the findings and went ahead to sign agreements with some companies to begin production.<\/p>\n
Documents available to The Finder indicate that the Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Education, thereafter entered into contractual agreement with Printex Ghana Limited, one of the local textile manufacturing companies, to supply the fabric.<\/p>\n
By the agreement, an initial volume of 5,500,000 yards of fabric was or\u00addered by government and was supposed to be delivered in two batches.<\/p>\n
Information gathered by The Finder indicates that out of this quantity, the first batch of 3,160,000 yards was pro\u00adduced and delivered to government.<\/p>\n
But that seems to have been an end to government’s business of buying from the local manufacturers.<\/p>\n
When The Finder contacted the General Manager, Administration at Printex, Mr Moses Tetteh Zizer, he ex\u00adplained that after the first consignment was delivered, all efforts to get govern\u00adment to initiate processes for the second consignment has since proved futile.<\/p>\n
He told The Finder that a number of correspondences to the Ministry of Ed\u00aducation requesting to know the status of the project were never answered.<\/p>\n
In a letter dated January 17, 2012, a copy of which is in the possession of The Finder, management of Printex fol\u00adlowed up on an earlier letter written on<\/p>\n
October 3,2011 seeking information on the status of the contract to produce the second batch of the fabric for the school uniform project.<\/p>\n
The letter, with the subject ‘RE: Government School Uniform Project,’ read in part: “We refer to our correspon\u00addence on the above subject dated 3rd October, requesting to know the status of the project to enable us organise our operations.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, no answer was vouchsafed and the status quo persists.<\/p>\n
“We wish to take this opportunity to reiterate our earlier request for informa\u00adtion on the way forward, in order to ad\u00adequately prepare for its continuation.”<\/p>\n
This letter is yet to be given a reply from the Ministry of Education, The Finder can report.<\/p>\n
He noted that the company, after the agreement, re-tooled its equipment in anticipation for continuous production for government as promised.<\/p>\n
“We even expanded production line, retooled our equipment because of the quantum we were looking at pro\u00adducing,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Abraham Koomson, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour, speaking to the issue, said the union is seriously disappointed at the development, because the policy to pro\u00adcure fabrics locally was to help resusci\u00adtate the local textile industry and to create jobs.<\/p>\n
“Abandoning this laudable policy to go purchase from China is most unfor\u00adtunate,” he noted.<\/p>\n
He mentioned that before govern\u00adment took the decision to procure lo\u00adcally, a team was assembled to conduct an assessment and do due diligence on local companies’ capacity to meet the supply demand before the agreement was signed.<\/p>\n
According to him, the team was overwhelmed by the findings, which subsequently led to the first contractual agreement with Printex Ghana Limited.<\/p>\n
He, therefore, urged the government not to renege on its promise and to, as a matter of urgency, reverse the trend if it is indeed committed to empowering the local textile industry to be competitive.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: The Finder<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ministry of Education has flouted President John Dramani Mahama’s policy on made-in-Ghana products. The Ministry is importing fabrics from China for government’s free school uniform programme for de\u00adprived pupils in basic schools,\u00a0\u00a0rendering a contractual agreement with Printex Ghana Limited, one of the local textile manufacturing companies, to supply the fabric useless. Equipment worth millions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":164305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[38,4,17],"yoast_head":"\n