Editorial: What Are We Celebrating?

Garment and textiles workers have not taken kindly to the government’s decision to award the printing of the anniversary cloth to Chinese companies.

Last Tuesday the Minister of Presidential Affairs, Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani told the whole country live on Ghana television that the government took the decision due to the inability of local textile companies to produce the anniversary cloth in huge quantities to meet demand.

But the garment and textile workers say the government actually ordered the cloths from China before submitting the designs to local textile companies. This delay in submitting the designs to them made it hard for them to meet the deadlines.

In fact the General Secretary of the Ghana Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Union, Mr. Abraham Coomson stressed that GTP, GTMC, PRINTEX and ATL together could have produced any quantity of cloth needed for the entire country if they had been given the designs ahead of time.

If even somebody stood to benefit from awarding the contract to Chinese companies, the broader interest of the manufacturing sector should have outweighed all other considerations

The argument that the contracts were given to Chinese companies due to the low capacity of local firms does not hold water for the simple reason, if the contracts had been awarded several months ahead of time, the local industries would have met the deadline.

If we are celebrating 50 years, at least we should be able to print our anniversary cloths, otherwise what are we celebrating.

The so-called talk about efficiency of the Chinese textile industry did not come out of the blue. But was the result of a consistent policy of investment in the sector by the Chinese government over the years. The government’s decision to import a chunk of the anniversary cloths from China is in fact an endorsement of the dumping of cheap products on the Ghanaian market to the detriment of local industries.

The immediate consequences of side stepping the local textile firms would be job losses. No one needs any reminder that Ghana’s clothing industry has fallen victim to a flood of cheap Asian textiles, mostly from China.

Now the sector that used to employ around 25,000 workers employs a mere 3000 workers countrywide in the 70s and 80s. The Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company, for instance, which used to employ 3,000 workers, now has a mere 150 on its payroll. The main casualties of the unbridled trade liberalization that has hit the textile sector are Freedom Textiles Ltd., Tema Textile and lately Juapong Textile.

The onus is on the government to act quickly to save the textile industry which has the potential to create new jobs. And if it must do so, contracts like the printing of anniversary cloth should be the starting point. Sadly, the decision to import Ghana’s anniversary cloth from China is ample demonstration of how unresponsive government is to the plight of the textile sector. What then are we celebrating if after 50 years we cannot produce even our own anniversary cloth?