President Mahama Commissions Northshore Apparel Hub, Cites 30,000 Jobs Potential at Full Strength

President John Dramani Mahama has commissioned the Northshore Apparel Hub at Savelugu in the Northern Region, describing it as the anchor tenant of a planned industrial hub expected to employ at least 30,000 youth at full strength.

The President made the remarks at the commissioning ceremony, where he commended the founder, Alhaji Nurudeen Mohammed, and his team for establishing the project. 

“NorthShore has made nonsense of all the arguments about factors of production,” he said, noting that most industrialists had long believed the North did not favour manufacturing.

President Mahama said NorthShore has already created at least 2,000 jobs, with most of its products destined for export to bring foreign exchange into the country. 

He said the factory is registered under the Free Zones programme and will benefit from all incentives available under it, including tax, duty and equipment exemptions.

He said the facility exemplifies government’s 24-hour economy initiative, noting that NorthShore will run several shifts to create more jobs for young people. 

“This is going to become an industrial hub,” he said, adding that traditional authorities in the area have indicated willingness to release more land for other industries.

The President recalled that the North was once a thriving industrial centre, with his own father among the pioneer commercial rice farmers who produced enough rice to feed the country and export to Burkina Faso. 

“The North was thriving with industry in the 70s,” he said, recalling that General Acheampong had honoured the region by naming it the Granary of Ghana. 

He said rice and vegetable oil processing mills, the Ghana Cotton Company, and the Juapong Textiles Mill once formed an integrated industrial chain supplying producers of wax prints, and that the decline of these industries was driven by unreliable power supply following the international oil crisis, weak value chains, and poor road links between Tamale and Accra.

President Mahama said the North now holds several comparative advantages for investors, including peace and stability, abundant litigation-free land, extension of the national power grid, and abundant sunshine for solar power. 

He said NorthShore has already incorporated solar power into its operations, and that government is working with Parliament to pass a net metering bill that will allow companies with solar plants to feed excess power into the grid through NEDCO.

He added that an ongoing expansion of the Eastern Corridor road, expected to be completed by the first quarter of next year, would further cut delivery times for goods moving from the North to Tema. 

“By the first quarter of next year, the entire Eastern Corridor, from Nakpanduri through Atimpoku to Tema, will be completed,” he said. 

He also cited an expansion of the Tamale water system, which will add 40 million gallons of water sourced from Yapei to serve Tamale, Savelugu and surrounding areas under a facility with the European Union, and the construction of the Esikuma Ports on the Volta Lake, which he said would give NorthShore and other Northern industries an alternative water-based route for transporting goods to Tema.

The President noted that about 80 percent of NorthShore’s employees are young women, many of whom would otherwise have migrated south in search of menial work such as head portering. 

“More North Shores will keep these girls here, so they do not have to go South looking for menial jobs,” he said, adding that expanding such factories in the North would help address the population imbalance between the North and South, a concern raised under Ghana’s African Peer Review Mechanism review.

President Mahama said the project was supported through blended financing involving international partners and Ghana Exim Bank, which provided almost $12 million towards the factory. 

“We seek investment, not aid. This is an example of investing together,” he said, thanking KfW and the German government for their support, along with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the 24-hour economy secretariat.

Richard Aniagyei, ISD