Ministry to prescribe dressing code for state officials

Accra, Oct. 29, GNA- The Government will soon introduce a new initiative that will "aggressively" promote the wearing of "exquisitely" tailored business wear, made from local fabrics for public/civil servants and parliamentarians, at least once in a week.

The initiative will, however, not be an administrative directive to enforce the practice, but the clothes will be so well tailored to attract interest of the target group.

Mr. Allan Kyeremanteng, Minister for Trade, Industry and PSI announced this on Wednesday in answer to a question in parliament.

Nana Asante Frempong, MP for Kwabre, wanted to know how the government's policy of making Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs) patronize locally manufactured goods was being implemented.

The Minister said a survey conducted by the Auditor-General's Department showed that since the administrative directive was issued in 1999, for the MDAs to patronise locally made goods, the policy has not been satisfactorily effective due to a number of militating factors. He said the survey identified poor quality and finishing, high prices and poor packaging as some of the basic problems facing local industries and the low patronage of locally made goods.

"The Ghana Standards Boards (GSB) is currently addressing the constraints and is assisting the local firms to become ISO 9000 compliant," he said.

Mr. Kyeremanteng said as part of moves to promote local industries and locally made goods, the Ghana National Procurement Agency (GNPA) was being restructured to provide a critical link between agricultural raw material inputs for local industries, using a guarantee price mechanism.

He said in performing that role, the GNPA will provide guaranteed prices for the agricultural products in order to stimulate production and improve supply of raw material for industry.

The Minister said the ministry has charged the GNPA board and management to take necessary steps to re-orientate the GNPA.

"My ministry is also pursuing a Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange Programme (SPX) under which large companies will outsource their non-core activities to small and medium scale enterprises to enhance productivity and growth," he said.

He said though there are not enough large industries in the country, there was the need for a policy framework to ensure subcontracting of non-core jobs from large to small and medium companies, otherwise the large companies will keep growing whilst the smaller ones remained small.

Mr. Kyeremanteng said government has also undertaken other measures designed to reduce the general cost of doing business in Ghana, in order to enhance the viability and competitiveness of local industry. These he said, included, the general improvement in the macro-economic environment as reflected in lower inflation, declining interest rates and stabilisation of the cedi among others.

He said though the commercial banks have some leverage in determining interest rates, government is making every effort to convince the banks to reduce rates for local industries for them to survive.