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Former President John Mahama's idea of a 24-hour economy if elected the next president of Ghana is generating a lot of heat in our political spaces. I have listened to him and others from his party provide highlights of the policy and the rationale behind it.

Here is how I am thinking about the idea amidst the usual partisan rancour and banter.

The context

If I understand the policy idea correctly, which I do, it is aimed at addressing a significant challenge the Ghanaian economy continues to face - job creation.

Ghanaians have a set of very clear problems they expect the government to address. From the Afrobarometer survey, unemployment is a number one priority. Over the eight times that the survey has asked Ghanaians: “In your opinion, what are the most important problems facing this country that the government should address?”, unemployment has emerged as the number one priority five times (2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2017); management of the economy twice (2014, 2022); and infrastructure once (2019).

Let me add another dimension to this. In survey round eight (2019), respondents were asked: “If the government could increase its spending on programmes to help young people, which of the following areas do you think should be the highest priority for additional investment?” Among the youth, six out of ten (59.5%) said “job creation.”

There is no doubt about how critically important the problem of unemployment is to Ghanaians overall and the youth as well.

In as important as unemployment is, Ghanaians have not rated government performance well over the years. When asked: “How well or badly would you say the current government is handling the following matters, or haven’t heard enough to say? Creating jobs”, only three out of ten (37%) on average, have rated government performance well. The highest government performance rating is fifty-four per cent (54%) in the survey year 2008. The lowest is sixteen per cent (16%) in survey year 2022.

Between 2008 and 2022, the percentage of Ghanaians rating government performance well when it comes to job creation has declined significantly by thirty-eight percentage points (-38%). Over the same period, the percentage of Ghanaian youth who rate government performance well on job creation has declined significantly by forty percentage points (-40%).

The 24-Hour Economy Proposal

As part of our Election 2024 public discourse, candidate John Mahama has offered the 24-hour economy as a policy solution to unemployment. At some point, I am hoping we will see a full policy document that fleshes out this idea.

From what I understand so far, though, a John Mahama government will offer a mix of incentives – cheaper power tariffs, tax breaks, security, etc. as a way of securing the participation of private actors in this 24-hour economy. In addition, where feasible, certain government agencies will provide their services around the clock. That is what I am grasping as the core of this proposal.

I believe the idea of a 24-hour economy is one worth trying.

Given the context I have provided above, we must continue to explore ideas that allow us to address this most important problem facing Ghanaians.

I get the argument that we do have some economic activities that take place during the night. I am sure we can all share examples of some economic activity we engaged in outside of the traditional 8 a.m.-5 p.m. hours. That is not in dispute. However, I believe this proposal goes beyond limited nighttime economic activities.

Whatever we call it – whether it is being introduced (novelty) or expanded (already exists) is not the most important policy question for me, although I can see why politically it is for some. What I have been asking myself is this – given what we believe is already occurring in limited ways, can we scale up? Can we find ways in which these nighttime economic activities can become part of a fully-fledged 24-hour Ghanaian economy? Can the government offer incentives to make it happen?
I say yes.

Solutions

I do so because we must keep searching for solutions to solve satisfactorily the unemployment problem which, as I have shown, Ghanaians consider a priority but are dissatisfied with how it has been handled over the years.

If the answer to this problem is not a 24-hour economy, then I am guessing there is an alternative solution. Can we have a counterproposal? After all, is that not what elections are about? A battle of ideas and presenting the Ghanaian voter with policy options to choose from.

I sincerely hope that as we engage in our usual partisan banter over the idea, we do not lose sight of the fact that a) creating jobs is a high priority for Ghanaians; and especially b) despite our best efforts over the years through several job creation efforts, Ghanaians remain generally dissatisfied.

The writer is a Democracy and Development Fellow at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana).