Page 126 - Afrika Must Unite

TOWARDS ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE I 11
establishment of plants where we have a natural advantage in
local resources and labour or where we can produce essential
commodities required for development or for domestic con­
sumption. During 1961, over sixty new factories were opened.
Among them was a distillery, a coconut oil factory, a brewery, a
milk processing plant, and a lorry and bicycle assembly plant. In
addition, agreements were signed for the establishment of a large,
modern oil refinery, an iron and steel works, a flour mill, and
sugar, textile and cement factories.
In forestry, we have introduced a programme for conservation
and disease control, which will both safeguard our forest reserves
and perm it an advance in timber production. For Ghanaian
lumber continues to be greatly prized in overseas markets and
has a high place on our export list. Production in our local tim ber
and cork factories has been expanded, and a marked improve­
m ent has taken place in the output of our mining of gold,
diamonds, manganese and bauxite.
O ur First Development Plan, launched in 1951, concentrated
on communications, public works, education and general
services. It prepared the way for our industrialization drive.
This was the keynote of our Second Development Plan which
will provide for the establishment of m any factories, of varying
size, to produce a range of hundreds of different products.
Financial provision is being made to ensure that adequate
facilities will be available to prospective investors in industrial
development.
Capital projects, such as the Volta River scheme and Tem a
harbour and its extension, will provide opportunities for our
people to develop skills at all levels. An essential element in our
industrial development must be the building up of our store of
technical and managerial knowledge. We are encouraging
foreign investment, but to accept it merely for the purpose of
widening our industrial base without strengthening our own
skills and techniques will leave us as economically impoverished
as we were under colonialism. Unless our own nationals are
given the opportunity of learning the job on the spot, side by side
with foreign ‘experts’, we shall be as ignorantly backward as
ever.
There is an argument that contends that young nations