Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Michael Okyere Baafi has revealed that the government has adopted Komenda Sugar Factory to be under the One district One factory initiative.
According to the minister, there has been a consultation between the board of the Komenda Sugar factory and the ministry to let the government to finance and revive the factory to help the constituency and the country as well.
This comes after the government introduced an investor called Agrotech to finance the Komenda Sugar Factory for the first three years of the agreement which involved $28 million in capital expenditure and working capital, including paying an annual concession fee of $3.3 million for a period of 15 years.
Mr. Baafi stated that the government gave the investor a time limit of 31st of August in this year to commence work but it elapsed without any work at the factory which made the government to terminated the contract.
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“So, we were expecting that at least after 31st of August, the factory will kick off to be able to start producing sugar but we didn’t see that so, government decided not to wait for the investor to come in as and when they want to, so then, we have agreed to now convert this factory to one district one factory. So, the government can now put in some investment to the factory.”
On the side of addressing the issue of raw materials to feed the Komenda Sugar factory, Mr. Okyere Baafi stated that government is engaging other people to venture into plantation across the country and also help them to get funds for it.
“a lot of people have shown some interest in trying to invest in sugarcane plantation across the country and so the government is encouraging them, so we will open the wave for them and also facilitate the arrangement for those who are supposed to get funds to able to start these plantations.”
Mr. Michael Okyere Baafi said this during an interviewed with Evans Mensah, the host of PM Express at JOYNEWS.
On the side of the former secretary of the Komenda Sugar Project Management Board, Ransford Vanni Amoah also stated that there was no commercial production because they were following the agreement process but not because there is lack of sugarcane.
He continued that they started some test runs sugar production before the current government took over from them.
“we produced test runs sugars because of some other works like civil works that they were doing at that time, we were only doing test runs but not commercial production.”
