Government challenged to promote the growth of local Industries in Northern Ghana

22-05-2011
The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), a youth advocacy group based in the Upper East Region is calling on the Mills led administration to as a matter of urgency create equal working opportunities for local businesses countrywide so as to give practical meaning to the country’s decentralization programme. According to them, local firms and industries, particularly those in northern Ghana are left to collapse due to lack of funds and support from government and relevant stakeholders. The group is therefore demanding explanation from the government as to why local firms in Northern Ghana are consistently marginalized in the award of contracts though they posses the requisite skills, capacity, competence and expertise as their counterparts in other regions. NORPRA made particular reference to the award of contract given to a Kumasi based furniture industry, Yaw Kokroko Enterprise to construct and distribute student beds to all second cycle institutions in the Upper East at the total neglect of local artisans who have the same requisite personnel and skills to do the job. Such discrimination they noted, tends to discourage local expertise to perform creditably, since they are denied the opportunity to exhibit their potentials. Speaking to Radio Ghana at Bolgatanga, the President of NORPRA, Bismark Adongo Yorogo said government’s failure to ward certain contracts to equally qualified businesses in deprived areas of the country has contributed in deepening the unemployment situation among the youth and has also become a push factor for out-migration to towns and cities in search for non-existing jobs. The situation, he further said has exacerbated the already existing problem of streetism and its associate problems among the northern youth and challenged government to take a second look at the problem and tackle it with all the seriousness it deserves. Mr. Ayorogo explained that until conscious efforts are made by government to create equal opportunities for businesses, the better Ghana agenda of 'Stimulating Growth for Development and job creation’ as captured in the 2011 budget statement, will be a mirage. He therefore called on government to help extend its support for local businesses in order to create opportunities at the local level. He also charged government to assist in providing storage facilities for schools in the region since his recent visit to the school revealed sadly that there were no storage facilities to store the beds which were yet to be assembled by the contractor. The beds, he lamented, are received and stored in the open at the mercy of the weather waiting for an undefined time for dormitories to be constructed. Mr. Adongo Ayorogo therefore called for the support of all stakeholders in the education sector of the region to help complement government’s effort in providing suitable storage facilities for such deprived schools to enhance effective teaching and learning at all times.
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