Does Ghana want to build a 24-Hour Economy on a 12-Hour Infrastructure?
At 2 a.m., Ghana is usually asleep. The streets are quiet, offices are dark, shops have shut and the last reliable ”trotro” left hours ago, if it even came at all.
Now the country wants something different. It wants an economy that does not sleep.
The ambition is understandable. A country that wants to produce more, process, export and employ more young people cannot have an economy that clocks out at 5 p.m. The idea behind the policy, shifts that keep factories, ports and services running longer without asking any one worker to stay awake for 24 hours, is plausible.
The rollout is already underway. The Secretariat says 268 filling stations and 33 manufacturers are now operating multi-shift arrangements and state bodies such as the Driver and vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Ghana Publishing Company and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority also run round-the-clock services. The programme’s stated goal is 1.7 million decent jobs by the end of 2028.
We wish it well but before Ghana turns the lights on for the night shift, it should ask a more basic question: who exactly is going to live this 24-hour life, and what is waiting for them outside the factory gate?
The 2 a.m. test
A 24-hour economy is not a policy that businesses can adopt on their own. It is a system that has to work at 2 a.m., and the system has to be present at that hour, not just the businesses. The whole system needs to be overhauled if there is something meaningful to ever come from the policy.
Consider the factory that runs three shifts. Good. Now consider the worker who finishes at 4 a.m. and must get home. Is there transport? Is it safe? Is it affordable? Will it arrive at all? These are serious realities of the average Ghanaian daily.
Consider the market that opens at midnight. Who supplies it? who secures it? and who collects the rubbish afterwards? Consider the business encouraged to operate through the night on an electricity supply that already has moods. Consider the hospitals, pharmacies, banks and emergency services that will now be expected to keep pace with everyone else.
Can the security force has the infrastructure and systems to protect the night worker in this 24 hour policy?
It is a small oversight that the night shift has been formally introduced while the night bus has not been informed.
The story the policy document forgets
Picture a young woman on the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at a manufacturing plant. Call her Efua. She is not a statistic, and she is not a “job created.” She is a person with a body that needs sleep.
At 6 a.m., Efua needs transport and a safe route home. She needs breakfast, and perhaps a child to get ready for school. She needs electricity and water when she gets in, and then somewhere quiet to sleep in a city that has just woken up around her.
Her employer has done what the programme asks. Now the question is whether the rest of the country has done its part. The 24-hour economy stops being a policy document the moment Efua steps out into the dawn and discovers what has and has not been built around her.
The country we actually have
Ghana’s urban systems were designed around a much narrower day. Traffic can turn a 10-kilometre trip into a journey measured in hours. Public transport thins out and becomes unpredictable after dark. Some neighbourhoods have street lighting that exists mainly as a rumour. Childcare is organised around daytime working hours. Electricity and water reliability are still planning considerations rather than assumptions. Sanitation was never designed for a country that works through the night.
Then there is the arithmetic of exhaustion. Workers who already spend long hours commuting are now being invited to do it at odd hours, with fewer transport options and more risk.
So the question is not whether Ghana wants a 24-hour economy. It is whether Ghana is building the 24-hour society required to sustain one.
A 24-hour economy is not a 24-hour opening culture
Here is the distinction that matters and it is one the policy itself should insist on. A 24-hour economy does not mean the same worker working longer. It means economic activity that continues around the clock while people work sensible, protected shifts.
The goal should not be a country where people work all day. It should be a country where economic activity can continue throughout the day without exhausting the people who make it possible.
That means labour protections that actually protect fair overtime, rest between shifts, safe transport for night workers, better security systems and health and safety standards that do not assume everyone is awake and fresh. Without them, a “24-hour economy” is a 24-hour opening culture with better branding.
The promises and the proof
The headline numbers are large. The Secretariat says agreements signed recently are expected to create more than 160,000 direct jobs, and government says the programme will help push unemployment below five per cent by 2034, down from 14.7 per cent recorded in September 2024. Investors are offered generous incentives, including tax rebates of up to 50% and import duty waivers.
It is fair to note what one review pointed out: the plants behind that 160,000 figure are not yet operating. These are targets, not results. A target is a promise, and a promise deserves a schedule.
Investors were promised incentives. The Ghanaian worker deserves to be promised something too.
What Ghana owes the people who will keep the lights on
If the state wants Ghanaians to work the night, the state should be able to say what it is doing about the night. That means a plan for safe, reliable transport when the sun is down, including which routes and at what hours. It means street lighting where night workers walk, and power and water reliable enough that a factory can trust them at 3 a.m. It also means child-care options that do not close at 6 p.m., and clear enforcement of labour standards for shift workers.
Nothing here is an argument against the policy. It is an argument for finishing it. A policy that creates night jobs without a night-time country around them will not deliver a modern economy. It will deliver tired people and more vices.
The real test
Ghana’s 24-hour economy should not be measured by how many businesses stay open after midnight. It should be measured by whether the roads, transport, electricity, security, healthcare, childcare, sanitation and labour protections can support the people who keep those businesses running.
Ghana can keep the lights on at 2 a.m. The harder question is whether it can keep Efua safe, rested and paid fairly while she works under them.
Turning the lights on is the easy part. Building the country that lives beneath them is the work.
By Hannah Agyemang
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