What will save Ghana’s Textile Industry?

GHANA’S once vibrant textile industry has gradually joined the league of other countries in the sub-region, such as Nigeria with collapsed textile and garment manufacturing sectors.

  

From over 20 textile firms that employed more than 25,000 people in the last two decades, the country now has only four textile factories employing less than 3,000 Ghanaians.

The country’s once thriving textile market is now flooded with Chinese substandard textile products, therefore surging the unemployment rate.

The situation seems to be further deteriorating with the four major textile companies currently in operation now employing some 2,961 people.

Inconsistent government policies over the years, industry players say, have contributed largely to the continuous decline in the sector. 

Currently, the four major companies that are surviving the turbulence in the sector are the Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL), Textyl Ghana Limited (GTP), and Printex; with Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC) at an ailing stage struggling between life and death.

The sector, which is predominantly cotton-based, has seen cotton production on small scale, while the production of man-made fibres is also undertaken on a small scale. 

The Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL), which is one of the major sources of raw material to the textiles industry in Ghana,  is on  the verge of  collapse.

Available statistics indicate that the country’s total industry output was pecked at 129 million yards in 1977, with a capacity utilisation rate of about 60 per cent.

That, it said, made GTP to maintain the lead in the industry with an annual production of 30.7 million yards.

This was followed by GTMC, ATL, and Printex with production levels of 15 million, 13 million and 6 million yards, respectively, within the same period. 

Unfortunately, however, the total industry output, the statistics said, declined from 129 million to 46 million yards in 1995 but recovered to 65 million yards in 2005.

According to the General Secretary of the Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Union (TEGLEU), Mr Abraham Koomson, cheap imports, particularly from China, have forced the companies to shut down their spinning and weaving departments, while hundreds of workers employed in those units have been made redundant.

“The irony of the situation is that, while this cheap imports flood the Ghanaian market, the production companies also steal and imitate patents and trademarks of the local companies, which are often embossed to make them look like they were manufactured and woven here in Ghana,” Mr Koomson said. 

For instance, one can easily come across a Chinese fabric with a GTP, Printex or ATL name and logo and therefore making it  hot commodity on the market, due to their relatively cheaper  price,” Mr Koomson said.

The imitated fabrics, according to the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), are often manufactured using some 28 chemicals banned in textile production, thereby making the fabric fade easily once it is washed. 

The surviving textile companies, he said, now “simply import the processed cotton, colour it and print it”. 

That, Mr Koomson said, was in relation to the fact that the private person’s essence of doing business is to make profit and not to create jobs for people. 

A task force set up in 2005 comprising representatives of the security agencies, the then Ghana Standards Board, the local manufacturers and the trades unions to conduct periodic checks at the points of sale of smuggled products was subsequently put in place with a view to arresting culprits and confiscating goods smuggled into the country.

The task force has, however, witnessed various setbacks in their operations, with persistent resistance on the part of the traders, who sometimes endanger the lives of the group.

The disregard for law and order has become the order of the day, while security personnel detailed to protect and ensure compliance in regulations sometimes compromise their stands for material gain.

The Ministry of Trade has as well looked on aloof, while people arrested for engaging in smuggling are left off the hook, as a result of over-politicisation of arrest of culprits.

Mr Koomson also blamed the country’s judiciary system for emboldening the smugglers.

A new approach of confiscating and burning seized smuggled textiles has also received stiff opposition from members of the public.

The irony is that despite the seizure and destruction of confiscated fabrics, the industry still remains uncompetitive, which is the evidence of failed interventions made by the government and stakeholders.

To what extent could acts of indiscipline that tend to deprive the state of revenue for job creation and development be tolerated?

Is complicity on the part of officials and those in charge of enforcement further lead to a decline of the sector?

Stakeholder bodies and industry regulators should do proper introspection with the hope of resuscitating the textile industry; this could reduce unemployment.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 30, 2012