Yaw Buaben Asamoa has said that Ghana would’ve been a $60b economy by now if successive governments had made serious strides to maintain the President’s Special Initiatives (PSI) program which was successfully handled by Mr. Alan Kyeremanten during the tenure of former President Kufuor.
He contends that nation wouldn’t have gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loans if we had been serious with the PSI.
“We would’ve been a $60b economy if we had taken Alan’s PSI serious… We wouldn’t have gone to the IMF”, he said on the Wontumi Morning Show which was monitored by Wontumionline.com.
He asserted that introduction of wearing Friday wear an initiative led by Alan Kyeremanten which was aimed at projecting a unique Ghanaian identity through the extensive use of local fabric and designs as business wear, brought enormous benefit to Ghana’s economy.
“Clothing industry in Bangladesh rakes in $30 billion a year for them…just sewing and exporting it”, he said as he said Alan Kyeremanten was trying to replicate the same feat in Ghana.
“Just with garment, he (Alan) has turned it into a $2 billion economy for Ghana”, he said.
He further elaborated that “take garments, when he introduced the PSI, people were mocking others for wearing tie and dye materials but when he said it should be worn as a Friday outfit- that is the norm now. We take it to work and everywhere”.
He continued that if out of Ghana’s 30 million population, 500,000 people are heeding to wearing local dresses, it brings financial profit to importers, factories and local tailors who work on them.
