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­­­Shift from ‘Friday wear’ to ‘Everyday wear’ – Ransford Tetteh

About seven years ago, Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor, through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and the President’s Special Initiatives (PSI), passionately appealed to Ghanaians to patronise Ghanaian fabrics.

The call heralded the “National Friday Wear programme,” which was part of the President’s conscious efforts to promote Made-in-Ghana goods.

The call seemed to have received some positive response from Ghanaians, as many people dropped their Western-style apparels on Fridays and proudly donned clothes made with local textiles.

The good news is that almost a decade after President Kufuor’s call, many individuals and institutions in the country have adopted the Friday wear dress code.

 As a result, many workers, students, government ministers, other public officials etc., are seen on the last day of the working week sporting made-in-Ghana clothes.

The females usually wear kaba and slit, straight dresses, (long and short), skirt and blouse and blouse over trousers, while the males put on shirts, jumpers, boubous and smocks.

However, the apparent high patronage of local fabrics in recent times does not seem to have engendered an overall boom in the textile industry as expected.

This has led to the collapse of many textile manufacturing companies, while the few surviving ones are literally grappling with unfair competition presented by cheap imports from Asia and other parts of the world.

To keep the promotion of local fabrics alive in order to save the ailing textile industry, the immediate past President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh, has called for a shift from the “National Friday wear” idea to an “Everyday wear” agenda.

In line with his call, he has decided to make his wardrobe almost 100 per cent Ghanaian/African. Indeed, the fashion-loving Editor is hardly seen wearing Western clothes.

“We should be proud of our local fabrics because they help us to showcase our identity,” he told The Mirror.

“Really”, he queried, “What would indicate to others that we are Ghanaians, when we attend international events wearing Western clothes?”

He said his call for “Everyday wear” is not only for the sake of protecting our identity but also to help save the ailing local textile industry.

He recalled that in the past, textile factories in Akosombo, Juapong and Tema provided jobs for many Ghanaians. People were conveyed in buses from Accra, Odumasi and other places to work in those industrial units and that impacted positively on the local economy. 

“Today, the textile industry is dead. The dressmaking industry is also dead and people are buying from outside the country. We find ourselves in a globalised world but we are lost in the (textiles) competition and the leadership of this country should be seen to be driving the campaign to save the industry,” he stated.

Mr Tetteh commended President John Dramani Mahama, Pastor Mensa Otabil, other national leaders and all citizens, who regularly wear made-in-Ghana clothes for helping to preserve the identity of the Ghanaian, while contributing to the survival of the dying textile industry.

He also charged the institutions responsible for border security to ensure that cheap fabrics are not smuggled into the country in order to save local textile companies from the unfair competition that is worsening their current predicament.

(Click to view more pictures of Mr Tetteh in his Ghanaian fabrics)

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