TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN DISTRESS

By Ama Achiaa Amankwah

Union leaders at Hall of TUC have confirmed that two of Ghana’s biggest textile manufacturing companies, Ghana Textile Print, (GTP) and Akosombo Textiles Ltd are struggling to survive in the face of keen foreign competition.

GTP, which used to hold its own against multinational textile companies, is currently finding it hard to stand on its feet and recently laid off 60 workers as part of measures to resuscitate its operations. GTP sources told Public Agenda that management intended to lay off a 100 workers, but reduced the number because of inadequate funds to pay them off.

GTP is not the only textile industry hit by trade liberation. Union sources told this reporter that Juapong Textiles limited is currently negotiating its payoff package and would soon lay off all its workers and fold up. The fate of Juapong Textile is not an isolated one, because GTP, which owns the largest shares in the company is itself struggling.

GTP is arguably the country’s flagship textile producer and is prided with producing some of the most traditional prints in Ghana. Some popular GTP prints include ‘Afi bi esan’, ‘entwa woho nkyere me’, ‘subura’, ‘akyekyede akyi’, ‘sika wo ntaban’, ‘meho efe kyen me kora’, ‘efie abosia’, etc. Unfortunately, these traditional prints are now being pirated in India and South Korea and smuggled into Ghana to undercut GTP.


Industry watchers have been explaining that though the Akosombo Textile Limited is the only local textile manufacturer that is holding out against competition, it is also contemplating folding up if nothing is done to save the textile industry. ‘‘ATL is able to produce currently because it has another affiliate in Nigeria, where the factory enjoys some form of government subsidy’, the source explained.

ATL management sources lamented that sometimes the company is compelled to import from Nigeria, but say that cannot continue for long and the last resort could be to relocate to Nigeria. ATL which is used to employ 2000 employees some years back currently has only 800.

Meanwhile, some union leaders in the garment sector have expressed dissatisfaction with the hasty decision taken by the Ministry of Trade Industry to announce measures to stop the smuggling of textile into the country. In their view the National Tripartite Committee is working to come out with pragmatic measures to ensure that if there is need for tax reviews parliament would at the forefront, since the Trade Ministry has no mandate to review taxes.

The textile manufacturing companies argue that the interventions announced by the MOTI&PSI are another round of promises because, in their view nothing was mentioned about the resources, both personnel and budget, that such a programme would require to be efficient.
Since Ghana liberalized her market in 1984, a number of local industries that used to compete keenly with foreign companies have folded up. Some are the sugar factory at Asutuare and Komenda, shoe and leather factories in Kumasi, Eveready factory, the tomato factory at Pwalugu in Upper East region and the Bolgatanga meat factory.

In 1999, a report by the Association of Ghana Industries, (AGI), on the state of Ghana’s industries stated that over 200 local industries have been stifled since 1984.

According to the AGI report, the worst hit sector was the garment and textile industry to the extent that Ghana which was providing items like towels and bed sheets for the tourism industry had to resort to importing cheap substitutes from South East Asia.

Thus, the so called boom in the tourism industry should have come with more jobs for the textile factories, but that is not the case.