President John Mahama’s directive on government's policy on Made in Ghana products is being flouted by the Min¬istry of Education according to certain documents. Fabrics being used for government's free school uniform programme for de¬prived pupils by the ministry are being imported from China. The ministry has rendered a contractual agreement with one of the local textile manufacturing companies, to supply the fabric useless with Printex Ghana.

Now, equipment worth millions of dollars, which the company purchased to re¬tool in anticipation of continuous production of the uniforms, lies idle. In 2009, local textile manufac¬turing companies were empowered by the government, by procuring all its fabric needs from local manufacturers. However, it seems the government has abandoned the plan a few years down the line as the local textile manufacturing companies, to pro¬cure the uniforms from China made huge investments into retooling and installing new ma¬chines to meet the new demand.

The Greater Accra Regional Directorate of the Ghana Ed¬ucation Service released sets of uni¬forms to schools in Metropolitan, Municipality and District Assemblies for onward distribution to pupils in the region, recently. This action has resulted in many in the manufacturing industry doubting the government's commit¬ment to grow the local industry if it continues to import cheap fabric from China at the expense of a weak local textile manufacturing industry.

Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour, Abraham Koomson said that the policy to pro¬cure fabrics locally was to help resusci¬tate the local textile industry and to create jobs and the union was seriously disappointed at the development.