Parliament has passed the 24-Hour Economy Authority Bill, 2025, paving the way for the establishment of the 24-Hour Economy Authority to implement the government’s 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Programme.
The Bill is anchored on three main pillars: production systems development and transformation, development of supply chain and market systems, and labour development.
Contributing to the debate on the floor of the House after the adoption of a report on the Bill, the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business, Mr Mahama Ayariga, explained that the proposed Authority was not in itself the mechanism for creating a 24-hour economy.
According to him, the Authority would function as a Coordinating Secretariat to ensure the delivery of productive sectors and job creation through effective coordination across ministries and agencies.
“What you call an Authority is a Secretariat, which is already in existence in the Office of the President. But the reason why we want to invest it with an authority status is that this is a Secretariat that is going to work with Ministers and sector ministries,” Mr Ayariga said.
He argued that several policies under the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, including the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative, failed due to the absence of well-established production systems to support sectoral transformation.
Mr Ayariga therefore urged members of the Minority to obtain copies of the 24-hour economy policy document to better appreciate its objectives and implementation framework.
“It will be naïve to imagine that on the heels of the very bad economy that you handed over to us, the day after, this economy will become a 24-hour operating economy,” he added.
However, the Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, strongly opposed the Bill, arguing that it would rather expand bureaucracy and lead to the waste of state resources.
“Mr Speaker, six of the biggest cities that operate 24-hour economies, namely New York, Tokyo, London, Bangkok, Dubai, and Berlin, none of them started off with a 24-hour economy Authority. What this law does is that it sets up a bureaucracy—an Authority with a Chief Executive, an internal auditor, among others, but does not deliver a 24-hour economy in any way,” he said.
Mr Nkrumah further argued that existing institutions such as the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) already played a role in accelerating export development, describing the proposed Authority as a duplication of functions performed by other agencies.
He also noted that the Bill failed to provide for around-the-clock working arrangements and did not specify the agencies—such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA)—that were expected to operate 24 hours, as promised by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the run-up to the December 7, 2024 presidential election.
According to him, the only function of the proposed 24-Hour Economy Authority that directly aligned with the policy objective was the proposal of an incentive regime, including fiscal and monetary incentives, for companies operating within the 24-hour economy value chain.
Mr Nkrumah also disputed claims by the Majority that 1,000 jobs had already been created under the 24-hour economy programme, demanding evidence to substantiate the assertion.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
