Flagbearer of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, has condemned past governments of Ghana under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for their failure in protecting local industries.

Speaking during a tour of the Eastern Region on Monday, November 23, 2020, the CPP Presidential Candidate for the December 7 elections said it is as a result of the failure of NDC and NPP governments to protect and grow local factories that have caused the collapse of the once-famous New Match Factory Ghana Limited at Kade.

“We are here to tell the people of Ghana with a huge number of industries and the huge potential if the right strategy is applied, that would give our people employment. Not the NaBCo or NADMO kinds of employment or the employment which is almost like doing your National Service but proper, decent work,” he said.

He said in 1964, under the leadership of the first CPP flagbearer and Ghana's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the New Match Factory Ghana exported matches to 10 African countries and at some point, it was the highest exporter of matches in Africa, “so much so that all the way from the United Kingdom, the British Match Factory had to come and understudy us”.

“This is what we call import substitution. As a nation, are we not able to produce our own matches and our own toothpicks…like we were able to do once?

“We can’t be producing our own chemicals?...we had something called Ayensu Starch Factory. Using cassava, industrial starch, a very important project but why is it no longer operating? Why did it fail? They failed because of lack of state protection,” he stressed.

He said the governments have always been focusing on the short-term profits of factories instead of the long-term benefits to the nation.

He wants the voters to give the CPP a chance to change the narrative of Ghana’s failing industry.