An Open Letter to H.E. John Dramani Mahama: The Audacity of the Third Shift
Your Excellency,
We stand at a crossroads where the ticking of the national clock has become the very pulse of our survival. The “Reset” you have championed is no longer a mere campaign refrain; it has become the oxygen of a gasping republic.
As the sun rises in 2026, your 24-hour economy stands as the vital bridge between the Ghana that was, a colonial-era daylight casualty, and the Ghana that must be: a self-reliant, industrial titan.
But let us speak with the intellectual honesty this crisis demands: a 24-hour economy is not a mere extension of opening hours. It is an emergency surgery on the nation’s soul. To move from the 14.7% unemployment abyss to the promised land of 1.7 million jobs, we must bridge the chasm between macro-optimism and micro-reality.
A 24-hour economy cannot run on a 12-hour power grid. The recent tariff hikes are, in effect, a tax on your own ambition. You must insulate the pioneers of the 24H+ Programme through a “Time of Use” shield. Power consumed between 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM must be billed at a rate below $0.07/kWh.
We cannot ask factories to choose between the bankruptcy of high costs and the “Dumsor” of the past. If the lights flicker in an industrial park in the Bono Region at 2:00 AM, the policy dies in the hearts of the people.
We cannot build a high-speed economy on a low-trust labour foundation. You are asking the Ghanaian worker to trade the sanctity of sleep for the hope of a paycheck. This requires a 15% Night Premium, a mandatory wage boost for the “Third Shift.”
Yet, do not let this burden the employer’s solvency. Make this premium tax-neutral; let the worker keep the full amount while the employer receives a corresponding rebate on their SSNIT contributions. A nation that treats its workers as mere cogs in a machine will soon find the gears of its economy grinding to a halt.
The sun may set on the Ghanaian horizon, but it must never set on the Ghanaian factory floor. A woman finishing her shift in Kumasi or a logistics driver traversing the Afram Plains must feel the invisible but omnipresent shield of the state.
We, thus, require a dedicated “Night-Shift Police Task Force” and the radical expansion of solar-powered street lighting. Security is the silent currency of this revolution; without it, the private sector will remain in a “wait-and-see” crouch.
Efficiency at the factory is a hollow victory if the product stalls at a checkpoint. We must implement the “Green Lane” Digital Interface. Using AI-driven risk profiling, 24H+ certified cargo must be cleared-on-water, moving from the Tema Port to the plate of the consumer without the friction of the “midnight toll.” We must digitise the corruption out of our trade arteries.
The current budget allocation of GH¢110 million is a seed, but it is not a harvest. To silence the critics who dismiss this as a “mirage,” you must leverage Public-Private Partnerships. Offer a 120% tax deduction for companies that upskill youth specifically for the “Third Shift.” Make the night cheaper than the day, and you will make the 24-hour economy inevitable.
Mr. President, you know this better than I do, leadership is not just the ability to steer the ship in a storm, but the courage to tell the passengers the truth about the leaks.
The first year of your return was about survival; this year must be about substance. The 24-hour economy is currently a bold architectural drawing. To make it a home for the masses, you must provide the electricity to light it, the capital to build it, and the law to protect it.
History will not judge us by the slogans we shouted in the sun, but by the industries we kept alive in the dark.
Respectly,
Raymond Ablorh
