- 24-Hour Economy Will Fail Without Demand, Safety and Lower Business Costs — COPEC
Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy programme risks becoming an expensive exercise in public construction unless government focuses on the commercial incentives, security and infrastructure that would make businesses and consumers genuinely willing to remain economically active after conventional working hours, the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers has warned.
Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of COPEC, said the policy should be built around creating conditions for private businesses to extend production and services rather than relying heavily on government-funded markets and commercial facilities.
“Government does not, for me, have a business going to build markets. I don’t subscribe to that one,” Mr Amoah said.
His argument goes to the heart of one of the most important questions surrounding the 24-Hour Economy: whether government should attempt to create night-time economic activity directly, or establish the conditions that allow businesses to decide for themselves when additional operating hours make commercial sense.
Mr Amoah favours the latter. “You can build an ultra-modern market in a village; if their culture and subculture is to sleep by 6 pm, that market will be there in ruins. You would have wasted all that money, all that effort,” he said.
A modern market, factory or commercial centre does not become productive simply because it can operate after dark. It needs customers, workers, transport, electricity, security and enough revenue during additional hours to cover the cost of staying open.
That means Ghana’s night-time economy ultimately has to pass a profitability test.
For a restaurant, pharmacy, salon, supermarket or factory, an additional shift means additional wages, electricity, transport, security and maintenance. Unless the revenue generated during those hours exceeds those costs, businesses have little incentive to extend operations merely because government policy encourages them to do so.
The challenge is therefore not simply to make Ghana open for longer. It is to create new economic activity during hours that are currently underutilised.
“Create the environment such that if I could afford to get home at nine and I can do two more hours outside,” Mr Amoah said.
That proposition places consumer behaviour at the centre of the policy.
A 24-hour economy cannot function if businesses remain open but customers disappear after sunset. Nor can it succeed if workers finish late but cannot find safe and reliable transport home.
For COPEC, security should therefore be treated as economic infrastructure rather than merely a policing issue.
“The number of men you put out there in the daytime, double it at night. We don’t want just the stop police checkpoints. We want to see them,” Mr Amoah said.
Consumers worried about robbery are unlikely to shop, eat out or use services late at night. Employees may resist night shifts if commuting is unsafe, while businesses forced to provide private security and transport can see the economics of extended operations deteriorate quickly.
Street lighting, visible policing, functioning public transport and reliable roads therefore become just as important to a 24-hour economy as electricity and tax incentives.
Better security and transport can encourage people to remain outside for longer. More consumers on the streets create demand. Greater demand encourages businesses to extend operating hours. Businesses requiring additional shifts can then employ more workers.
If streets remain poorly lit, transport becomes scarce after normal working hours and businesses face higher security costs, extended opening hours may simply increase operating expenses without increasing revenue.
That is why Mr Amoah’s critique is fundamentally about sequencing.
Infrastructure matters, but government must first understand what type of infrastructure actually changes economic behaviour.
A new market without night-time demand may become an underutilised public asset. Improved lighting, transport and policing around an existing commercial district may, by contrast, unlock economic activity without constructing an entirely new facility.
COPEC also wants incentives used to encourage consumers to shift some activity into off-peak hours.
That could include discounts or differentiated pricing for selected goods and services during periods when businesses would otherwise experience low demand.
Internationally, businesses frequently use off-peak pricing to influence when customers consume services. Ghana could potentially adopt similar approaches to encourage shopping, entertainment, transport and other activities outside traditional peak periods.
“The other 12-hour period is wasted because it’s dark,” Mr Amoah said.
His argument should not be read literally as suggesting that every sector must operate continuously for 24 hours.
Rather, it reflects the amount of potentially productive time that disappears when economic activity largely shuts down after dark.
A genuine 24-hour economy is not one in which the same workers remain at their posts all day and night. Nor is it simply an economy with a handful of businesses carrying “24-hour” labels. Its economic value comes from additional shifts, additional transactions and increased utilisation of assets that would otherwise remain idle.
A factory operating three shifts instead of one may produce more using the same machinery and buildings. A logistics company moving goods overnight can increase the utilisation of its fleet. A pharmacy serving customers beyond conventional hours generates transactions that might otherwise be delayed or lost.
But if consumers merely change the time at which they make purchases without increasing total consumption or production, the effect on economic output may be limited.
Government must distinguish between redistributing existing economic activity across more hours and actually creating additional economic activity. The latter is what ultimately generates sustainable employment and higher output. That also means the private sector cannot be treated as a passive participant. Government may design the policy, but firms will make the operational decisions.
They will calculate whether extra sales justify extra wages, whether electricity costs make another production shift viable, whether workers can travel safely and whether sufficient customers exist to support extended operations.
If the numbers do not add up, policy directives alone will not keep businesses open.
COPEC’s position therefore challenges government to view the 24-Hour Economy less as a construction programme and more as an exercise in improving the economics of doing business.
That would require reliable electricity, better transport, street lighting, security and appropriate incentives, but also a broader effort to lower the cost of operating additional shifts.
Success should consequently be measured by economic outcomes rather than physical infrastructure.
The relevant indicators would include whether factories increase capacity utilisation, whether firms introduce sustainable second and third shifts, whether employment rises, whether transaction volumes increase during previously dormant hours and whether businesses generate enough additional revenue to remain open without permanent government support.
Those measures would reveal whether Ghana has created a genuinely productive 24-hour economy or merely extended opening times.
Mr Amoah’s intervention therefore reduces the policy to a simple commercial proposition. It can, however, make it safer, cheaper and easier for people to work, travel, shop and produce after dark.
If businesses see customers, workers can commute safely and additional shifts generate profits, the 24-Hour Economy can begin to sustain itself. If those conditions are absent, new markets and extended opening hours may amount to little more than infrastructure waiting for an economy that never arrives.
For Ghana, the success of the programme will therefore depend not on how many buildings remain illuminated at midnight, but on whether enough economic activity is taking place inside them to justify keeping the lights on.
