By: Richard DABLAH
Concerned Ghanaian | Analyst of Urban Waste | Voice for a Dignified Environment
There is a strange rhythm to Ghanaian life—an inherited tempo not of our choosing. It is
a rhythm where government offices shut when citizens most need them. Where
productive land lies fallow while youth scroll through foreign job boards. Where raw gold
is exported at dawn and refined jewelry is imported at dusk. We speak the language of
independence, but we obey the schedule of dependency. Our national time has not
been sovereign.
On July 2, 2025, Ghana finally declared: enough.
The launch of the 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Program
was more than a policy event. It was a confrontation with the very structure of
postcolonial time—an effort to decolonize not just trade, but the clock itself. What
President John Dramani Mahama unveiled was not another project. It was a profound
correction: a philosophy of time-as-production, time-as-sovereignty,
time-as-liberation.
And in a continent where empty slogans abound and productivity is increasingly
outsourced, Ghana’s message is quietly revolutionary: every hour must count.
Beyond Policy: This Is Time Reclaimed
Critics may ask: what is new here? Has Ghana not heard of industrial zones, export
programs, and agricultural schemes before?
They miss the point.
The 24-Hour Economy is not a rebranding of old models—it is an admission that past
models failed because they obeyed colonial hours. We operated daytime policies in a
global system that moves continuously. While factories in Shenzhen and Hamburg ran
through the night, ours idled. We scheduled our futures to close at 5 p.m.
To correct this, Ghana now proposes not simply more work, but structured
productivity across three eight-hour shifts—designed not to exploit labor, but to
multiply it. It is not about chasing the clock; it is about reshaping it.
The Economic Philosophy Beneath the Surface
To understand the deeper meaning of the 24-Hour Economy, one must go beyond
technocratic details and study its structural intent.
This is not a growth model fixated on GDP figures. It is a post-dependency economic
framework rooted in:
● Time-differentiated production: organizing national output not around
bureaucratic hours, but around maximum economic rhythm.
● Territorial integration: transforming logistics, roads, river ports, and energy
corridors into economic veins—chief among them the VR Economic Corridor,
which reawakens the dormant dream of a trans-territorial Volta Basin economy.
● Institutional recalibration: moving beyond ministry silos to a single 24-Hour
Authority, autonomous but presidentially mandated, designed to outlive political
cycles.
● Financial innovation: blending public guarantees with private capital through
entities like EXIM Bank, Venture Capital Trust, and the Development Bank
Ghana—not merely to lend, but to liberate.
This is economic architecture built not for optics, but for endurance.
Why Nkrumah Matters
Some scoff at the invocation of Kwame Nkrumah, arguing that the times have
changed. But invoking Nkrumah here is neither romanticism nor nostalgia—it is
necessity.
Nkrumah remains the only African leader who understood time as both historical and
productive. His industrial projects failed not because they were wrongheaded, but
because he ran out of protected time. He was toppled before Ghana could
synchronize its sovereignty with its schedule.
The Volta River Project was not just a dam; it was a calendar. The industrial parks were
not just buildings; they were clocks set against Western control.
The 24-Hour Economy reactivates Nkrumah’s timeline—not by repeating him, but by
advancing what he began.
Africa’s Broader Context: Between Extraction and Exhaustion
The importance of Ghana’s decision resonates beyond its borders. Across Africa, the
rhythm of our economies remains externally choreographed. We export in raw time. We
import in refined intervals.
Take the Sahel, for instance: a region of immense agricultural potential, yet the harvest
cycles are broken by poor transport, energy shortages, and nighttime insecurity. Or
Nigeria: blessed with capacity, yet bound by electricity shortfalls and trade gridlock. Or
South Africa: high-tech zones flanked by power cuts and rigid work structures.
Ghana’s model—if implemented with seriousness—offers a new tempo for the
continent. A tempo where productivity is continuous, not episodic. Where logistics are
interlinked. Where economic sovereignty is mapped by hours, not just hectares.
Challenges Are Real—but So Is the Opportunity
Let us be honest. There are risks.
There will be resistance from legacy institutions that fear change. There will be labor
concerns over shifts and exploitation. There will be infrastructure gaps, corruption
threats, and implementation fatigue. Without deep civic engagement, it could become
another elite-driven directive.
But here is what is different: the 24-Hour Economy names time as the primary
battleground. And by doing so, it addresses the one element every failed program
ignored.
You can pour capital into a broken schedule. It will leak.
You can train workers for industries that sleep. They will rust.
You can build factories in darkness without power, ports, or purpose. They will
rot.
This program says: Fix time—and the rest will follow.
The Moral Dimension: Time as Social Justice
There is an ethical core here that should not be overlooked.
In a nation where the youth unemployment rate shadows hope, where single mothers
hustle two jobs by day and rest none by night, where a fisherman returns at dawn only
to find no cold storage for his catch—a restructured economic schedule is a form of
justice.
The poor are not lazy. They are overworked by inefficiency. They are defeated not by
idleness, but by unstructured national hours that waste their effort.
A 24-Hour Economy is a redistribution of opportunity—measured not just in money, but
in minutes.
Conclusion: Ghana’s Clocktower Moment
In the heart of Accra now stands something abstract, yet deeply real: a new national
clock.
It ticks not with seconds, but with sectors.
It marks not morning and evening, but harvest and production, transport and trade,
and learning and labor.
If Ghana keeps to this clock, it will not only grow—it will lead.
And if Africa listens, adjusts, and adopts—not mimics, but adapts—then this small
country, once first in independence, could be first in productive sovereignty.
Let others chase foreign loans. Ghana has chosen to chase its own hours.
Let others fear the dark. Ghana has chosen to light the night.
Let others wait for aid. Ghana is asking: What if our time was the capital we’ve been
waiting for?