Do We Need 24-Hour Markets or 24-Hour Production?

Do We Need 24-Hour Markets or 24-Hour Production?

A Critical Reflection on Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy Policy

By Eric K. K. Abavare, Department of Physics, KNUST, Kumasi

Introduction

Since the 24-hour economy was first unveiled in the manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), rolled out on the campaign trail, and now pursued as flagship policy under the government of His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, I have made a sincere effort to understand the concept in the light of competitive market forces and Ghana’s broader socio-economic aspirations. Regrettably, the more the policy is elaborated, the less convincing it becomes. Nowhere is this clearer than in the government’s fixation on constructing so-called 24-hour markets, while dozens of existing, half-completed market facilities across the country lie abandoned, ignored and deteriorating.

The purpose of this article is to argue, respectfully but firmly, that Ghana does not primarily need 24-hour markets; it needs 24-hour production. A policy framework that privileges the movement of imported goods over the manufacture of exportable ones will neither generate the foreign exchange the country desperately requires nor deliver the structural transformation successive governments have promised.

1. Markets Already Exist — What New Problem Are We Solving?

The first question any responsible policy must answer is the problem it seeks to solve. Ghana is not short of market infrastructure. Kejetia in Kumasi, Makola and Kaneshie in Accra, Aboabo, Techiman, Tamale Central and dozens of district markets already handle enormous volumes of trade daily. Where the constraint bites is not opening hours but productive capacity, cold-chain logistics, reliable electricity and post-harvest storage.

Extending the trading day from sixteen to twenty-four hours does not, on its own, create a single additional unit of value; it merely redistributes existing turnover across a longer clock. Worse still, there are credible reports that some functioning market structures are being pulled down to make way for the new 24-hour facilities.

This is difficult to justify at a time when the Krofrom Market in Kumasi has remained abandoned since the days of President Kufuor, when the Kotokuraba Market redevelopment in Cape Coast has faced repeated delays, and when the Kejetia Phase II expansion is still awaiting completion. Demolishing what works to build what is not yet needed is the very definition of misallocated capital.

2. Selling More, Producing Less: A Structural Trap

The deeper concern is what will actually be sold in these round-the-clock markets. If the shelves are stocked, as they overwhelmingly are today, with imported textiles, electronics, household wares and processed foods, then each extended hour of trade becomes an extended hour of foreign-exchange outflow. The cedi is placed under further pressure, our external reserves are drawn down, and the trade deficit widens. In effect, the taxpayer finances the infrastructure through which imports — chiefly from China and other Asian economies — more efficiently displace local alternatives.

Contrast this with the countries whose 24-hour economies are routinely cited as models. Shenzhen operates around the clock because its factories, ports and logistics chains produce goods for the world. Ho Chi Minh City’s night shifts serve export-oriented garment and electronics assembly plants. Guangzhou’s wholesale hubs move Chinese-made products into global markets.

In each case, the 24hour rhythm is a symptom of a productive economy, not a policy imposed upon a consumptive one. Ghana risks importing the symptom without ever building the underlying capacity. The intellectually honest version of the 24-hour economy would therefore prioritise factories, agroprocessing plants, pharmaceutical facilities and assembly lines that operate three shifts a day and export the surplus for hard currency.

A cocoa-processing plant running through the night in Suhum, a sheabutter refinery in Tamale, a garment factory in Tema Export Processing Zone or a cashew-processing unit in Wenchi would each earn foreign exchange while creating durable, skilled employment. A twentyfour-hour market selling imported second-hand clothing does the opposite.

3. The MBA Syndrome: A Nation Trained to Sell, Not to Make

The market obsession is symptomatic of a wider national pathology, one that is mirrored inside our universities. It is far cheaper and quicker to produce a graduate of a business school; a whiteboard, a marker and two years of case studies are largely sufficient; than it is to train an engineer, a scientist or a medical researcher, whose formation requires years of laboratory work, expensive equipment, industrial attachments and sustained public investment.

Predictably, our institutions have expanded MBA and general business programmes at a far greater rate than engineering, applied science and technology programmes. The consequence is a labour market that produces sellers, marketers and middlemen in abundance, but too few of the engineers, technologists and artisans required to build a productive base.

A government that then chooses to invest scarce fiscal resources in more selling space rather than more making space simply reinforces the same imbalance at the level of national policy. Twenty-four-hour markets are, in this sense, the macro-economic expression of a whiteboard-and-marker education model.

4. Abandoned Priorities: Hospitals, Schools and National Pride

One must also weigh the 24-hour markets against the projects they crowd out of the public purse. Agenda 111, the New Patriotic Party administration’s programme to construct district and regional hospitals across the country, remains substantially unfinished.

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital’s longawaited replacement facility, the KNUST Teaching Hospital and several regional referral centres still await the resources that would allow them to open their doors.

Basic and secondary schools continue to operate under trees, in dilapidated blocks or in overcrowded classrooms. In parallel, the abandoned E-block secondary schools and the stalled National Cathedral- whichever side of the political aisle one occupies- have become monuments to the Ghanaian habit of starting more than we finish.

Adding another category of half-completed flagship, this time in the form of 24-hour markets, would compound rather than correct the problem. A hospital that treats patients through the night, a laboratory that runs experiments through the night, or a factory that produces goods through the night is a far more defensible use of the twenty-four-hour concept than a market stall selling imported wares at 3 a.m.

5. A Better Path: From 24-Hour Markets to 24-Hour Production

None of this is to argue against ambition, nor against the idea that Ghana should aspire to the intensity and productivity of a round-the-clock economy. The argument is that we should pursue that ambition where it actually generates value. A credible reorientation of the policy would, at a minimum, include the following:

1. Complete and rehabilitate existing but abandoned market facilities Krofrom in Kumasi, Kotokuraba in Cape Coast, and Kejetia Phase II before commissioning any new market of comparable scale.

2. Redirect the 24-hour incentive package tax rebates, subsidised power tariffs, security support towards manufacturers, agro-processors and exporters that operate multiple shifts, rather than towards retailers of imported goods.

3. Tie public financing for any 24-hour facility to a minimum local-content threshold, so that the shelves and stalls stock demonstrably Ghanaian goods.

4. Prioritise completion of Agenda 111 hospitals, the KNUST Teaching Hospital and other health and education infrastructure ahead of new commercial projects, since a healthy and educated workforce is the pre-condition for any productive economy.

5. Reform tertiary funding formulas to correct the structural bias towards low-cost business programmes and rebuild capacity in engineering, applied science, technology and vocational training.

Conclusion

Ghanaians have too often been asked to celebrate the appearance of development rather than its substance. A ribbon-cutting at a new 24-hour market makes a compelling photograph, but it does not close the trade deficit, it does not stabilise the cedi, it does not employ our engineers, and it does not treat the patients waiting for Agenda 111 hospitals to open. It is time, respectfully, for the citizenry to demand of every government this one and those that follow: the essentials rather than the ornamental. Until we resolve to produce what we consume and to export what we produce, no amount of extended trading hours will lift Ghana onto a genuinely competitive footing. We do not primarily need 24-hour markets. We need 24-hour production.