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The Komenda sugar factory has been taken over by reptiles and rodents, Komenda constituency MP Edina Eguafo Abirem, Mr. Samuel Atta Mills, told Charles Akrofi during the first edition of the Hansard program on Class91.3FM .
Expressing his disappointment at the responses of Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen in Parliament on Thursday, July 22, 2021, regarding the delayed operationalization of the plant, the brother of the late President John Atta Mills said: “Let’s be clear : this government, the, does not intend to operationalize the Komenda sugar factory.
He explained: “I say this because according to the answers of the minister that he gives us, and all the time by moving the goal post.”
“I don’t think they care about the Komenda sugar factory,” he hinted, illustrating, “Look how badly it has deteriorated since 2016? Did you not hear the same minister say when he came to power that the sugar refinery never produced sugar? What happened when he checked for the second term that he admitted they were producing sugar? My God! It’s a big difference between night and day.
He said the factory, located in his constituency, “is now overrun with snakes and rats.”
It is also at the mercy of the weather, he laments.
“Everything is open to the sky and things are exactly as we left in 2016. Nothing has been done,” complained Mr. Mills.
“But do you know the sad part? This factory, in operation, has the potential to directly and indirectly hire 7,500 people, ”he noted.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo government played politics with the factory.
“It’s sad that when it comes to things like this, we try to be political. But guess what? They brought this same president to my riding to cut the grass for a One District-One Factory company that makes pure water. At that time, the company was hiring 25 people. You leave a plant with 7,500 jobs just to cut the grass for a plant that employs more than 25 people. “
What Mr. Alan Kyerematen told Parliament
On Thursday 22 July 2021, Kyerematen told Parliament that the plant will be operational before the end of 2021.
“I tasked the transaction advisor to ensure that the condition precedent to the concession contract and the roadmap for the opening of the plant are finalized by the end of August 2021 to allow the start of the operational activities of the plant before the end of the year, ”Kyerematen said.
Park Agrotech Ghana Limited, a Ghanaian-Indian company, is the new investor who will take over the operations of the plant.
The Ghana-based company is a subsidiary of the Skylark Group of Companies of India, one of the largest integrated agriculture companies in India.
A few weeks ago, a group, Concerned Citizens of the Komenda Traditional Area, wrote to the police about its intention to demonstrate in connection with, according to it, the abandonment of the Komenda sugar factory in the central region.
The group scheduled its march for Tuesday, July 6, 2021 but subsequently abandoned the movement.
Deemed sale of plant
In 2019, former President John Mahama called “unacceptable” what he said were plans by the Akufo-Addo government to sell the Komenda sugar factory to private gain, and also denied allegations that he, as president, planned to get rid of the plant.
“It is unacceptable to sell the plant; it is an investment that the government has made, ”Mahama said, adding:“ We can get the expertise and the technology to run this plant ”.
Mr Mahama said: “Sugar is one of the commodities that we import a lot – almost $ 200 million every year – so if we produce some of that sugar here it reduces the foreign exchange we have to take out. outside to import sugar ”.
“I will urge the government to follow the path we have taken,” he said, addressing the people of Komenda during a tour of the Central region this weekend.
Mr Mahama’s concerns echoed those of Mr Mills, who on Friday, April 12, 2019, expressed his anger at what he called a devaluation of the $ 35 million plant into a $ 12 million facility. dollars by the Akufo-Addo government.
The factory, built at a cost of $ 35 million from a facility of the Exim Bank of India, was redeveloped and inaugurated by the former Mahama administration in 2016 and closed in June of the same year and has since remained in sleep.
It has a crushing capacity of 1,250 tonnes of sugar cane per day.
Akufo-Addo’s government cited a number of reasons for the plant’s dormancy, including an inappropriate implementation plan and insufficient raw materials to power the plant, among others.
The brother of the late President Mills wondered at the time, however, how, within a year, the plant’s value could drop by $ 23 million when plans were underway to turn it over to strategic investor by the end of April 2019.
According to Mills, the Auditor General and the special prosecutor’s office were to investigate the case.
“We cannot sit down for these things to happen. If someone stole two goats and a chicken, we all know how old that person will be [in jail], but I base my conclusion on this: that while it is true that it was valued at 12 million dollars, we must be very concerned in this country, ”he said.
“Why should he always focus on acquiring wealth illegally?” He asked himself.
In November 2017, the government began to revive the factory.
Mr Kyerematen told Parliament at the time that a $ 24.5 million credit facility from the Indian Exim Bank was to be obtained to develop and implement a planting and subcontracting program in the purpose of supplying raw materials to the factory.
It was to see to the cultivation of some 14,100 acres of sugarcane to feed the mill but that never happened, prompting Mr. Kyerematen to return to parliament to announce the government’s plans to hand over the plant to a new strategic investor by the end of April of that year.
Mr Kyerematen, on April 4, 2019, told Parliament that the plant’s shutdown was due to technical and financial issues.
Responding to questions asked by Mr. Atta Mills, Mr. Kyerematen indicated that upon taking up his post, a technical audit was carried out on the installation, which revealed, among other things, that the condition of the soil was not not in favor of the production of quality sugar cane, adding that the government is taking steps to hire a new investor and expects a decision to be taken by April of the same year.
In addition, he noted that: “A test was never carried out before the plant was put into operation due to the unavailability of sufficient sugar cane”.
According to him, the plant, when it was inaugurated by the previous government, “was unable to produce the required refined white sugar due to the lack of” certain units of processing components “which were not completely installed during the test “.
He said: “About 35 elements were not installed when commissioned, although they are essential for the production of sulfur-free white sugar.”
In addition, he noted that the area of land available for growing sugar cane is far less than the 6,000 acres needed to supply sugar cane to run the plant at full capacity.
He stressed, “There has been no subcontracting program for smallholder farmers to support a core plantation for the factory.”
It will be recalled that the previous government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) contracted a loan of some GHS 35 million for the renovation of the Komenda sugar factory.
But the minister said a decision has been made not to trigger the loan until all challenges have been resolved. However, the minister did not provide figures regarding the cost to the nation of the delay in activating the loan.
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