Accra: President John Dramani Mahama has consistently signaled a national reset toward industrialization, job creation, export growth, and import substitution. The Bank of Ghana is also making difficult macroeconomic reforms aimed at lowering inflation, stabilizing the cedi, and gradually reducing interest rates to restore confidence in the economy. However, if Ghana's development finance institutions, especially Ghana Export-Import Bank, fail to align with this national direction, then the country risks losing billions in industrial investments, thousands of jobs, and years of economic opportunity.
According to Ghana Web, the President has every reason to demand accountability for production losses and unrealized job capacity caused by underfunded industrial projects that were never properly supported to maturity. This is because many Ghanaian industries did not collapse because the ideas were bad, but because their financing stopped halfway.
Across Ghana, several agro-processing and manufacturing projects were financed only partially-enough to build infrastructure and acquire machinery, but not enough to secure raw materials, working capital, market expansion, guarantees, or operational sustainability. Factories designed for 24-hour production have been left operating at below 10% capacity, not because the vision was wrong, but because the financing structure was incomplete.
Development banks globally provide more than loans; they offer credit guarantees, equity participation, letters of credit, raw material financing, export guarantees, structured moratoriums, working capital support, supplier contract financing, interest support mechanisms, and risk-sharing frameworks with commercial banks. If EXIM had strategically deployed these instruments, many Ghanaian industries would have become bankable enough for commercial banks to participate confidently.
The current efforts by the Bank of Ghana to stabilize the economy and reduce interest rates are important foundations for industrial recovery. But lower interest rates alone cannot revive industries already burdened by under-capitalization, high utility costs, raw material shortages, long gestation periods, heavy capex exposure, and foreign exchange pressures. This is where the Ghana Export-Import Bank should become transformational.
When factories operate at 5% or 10% capacity, thousands of potential jobs are lost, tax revenues decline, imports rise, export opportunities disappear, idle machinery depreciates, loan repayment becomes impossible, youth unemployment worsens, and Ghana loses industrial competitiveness. The issue is therefore not merely about individual businesses. It is about national productivity losses.
Ghana must shift from collateral banking to development banking. Many Ghanaian industries are asset-rich but cash-flow-constrained during growth stages. A development bank should recognize installed factory capacity, market access potential, export contracts, employment impact, strategic national value, and supply chain influence. Instead, too much emphasis has historically been placed on collateral recovery rather than industrial growth recovery.
The President's 24-Hour Economy vision cannot succeed if existing industrial investments collapse under financial pressure after billions have already been invested into infrastructure and machinery. Ghana cannot continuously talk about youth employment while factories capable of employing thousands remain underutilized. Nor has the country achieved export-led growth, while processing industries struggle to secure operational financing.
If Ghana truly wants industrial transformation, then development finance institutions must be measured not only by loan recovery but by factories sustained, production capacity unlocked, exports expanded, and youth jobs created. The President, therefore, has legitimate grounds to hold Ghana Export-Import Bank accountable for production and employment capacity losses where strategic instruments such as guarantees, equity participation, restructuring support, and raw-material financing could have transformed struggling but viable industries into globally competitive national assets.