I have read with amazement a statement attributed to the Upper Eats Regional Minister Mr. Donatus Atanga Akamugri that ’24-Hour Economy Markets’ are set to be constructed across the region.
I have been saying all along that the so-called ’24-Hour Economy’ Policy was a spur of the moment idea that occurred to the then Flag Bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) when he was seeking power. It was a statement that was made without thinking through the idea, unworkable as it is, and the fcat that Ghana is now about to commit scarce national finances towards markets for this concept, prove the fact.
Even though I am not an economist, I will state for the record that the economy of every country encompasses all activity that takes place in the eco-system. That is, everything that we do, even eating, bathing, and relieving ourselves, has economic impact, one way or the other.
Naturally, therefore, a ’24-Hour Economy’ would encompass a policy that recognizes that all that we do has financial and economic effect. Therefore, to make these things that we do have a 24-hour effect, we must ask ourselves which ones we can promote to operate on a 24-hour basis.
We know, for instance, policing, immigration, prisons, hospitals, fire service, transportation and others operate round the clock.
There are others that currently operate in eight-hour or twelve-hour sequences, such as the judiciary, education, markets (generally except those who choose to operate around the clock out of necessity) and others.
What policy makers, if they were interested in making the concept of a ’24-Hour Economy’ work, would have done was ask what can realistically be done to ensure that certain services operate around the clock? For instance, a couple of Sundays ago, I needed to buy something online using my foreign account. It was afternoon on Sunday, and my attempts to deposit money electronically into the account to make the purchase possible, failed. The bank had locked down its systems. On Monday morning, however, I was able to make the deposit and thence the purchase.
Now, if we were truly interested in creating a ’24-Hour Economy’ we would ensure that the banks allow electronic banking around the clock and even on Sundays, so that commerce can go on for the sleepless and those willing to buy and sell electronically. If we are not doing these simple things, how on earth do we think that building markets in the Upper West would create the 24-hour economy?
Every four years, we happily go to the ballot box to elect leaders who have no incline of what they are doing, and the ’24-Hour Economy’ idea is symptomatic of this. If you cannot, and in fact it has not occurred to you that keeping banking open 24 hours would improve commerce, how do you think that building a concrete structure would help?
We have lost our heads somewhere, and we need to go back looking for them, because this is frightful.
I am particularly saddened that we would spend valuable funds we could have used better elsewhere, on such a hare-brained concept like creating a 24-hour market. Is it that we will keep these structures open 24 hours a day, even when people do not find the necessity to use them? Where are our heads, our brains? why do we keep on harming ourselves this way?
