Don't allow Komenda sugar factory to rot – Spio to Akufo-Addo

The Akufo-Addo government must not allow the Komenda Sugar factory to “rot” away just because it was constructed by the Mahama administration, former Minister of Trade and Industry Ekwow Spio-Garbrah has said.

The $35million factory built with an Indian Exim Bank facility has been left dormant in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem municipality of the Central Region despite the fact that it was opened for use by the Mahama administration in May 2016, ahead of the December elections in that year.

Speaking to Class News about the situation, Mr Spio-Garbrah said it would be prudent for the government to rope the factory into its 1 district-1 factory programme rather than leave it to waste away.

“If we are going to have 1 district-1 factory, and the factory that already exists, and which machinery is already brand new and pristine, is being allowed to deteriorate and to rot, because I don’t think any maintenance is being carried out on the machine, this is what the NPP did to the more than 300 factories that Kwame Nkrumah built; they left the 300 factories to rot and then eventually tried to sell some of them and the last ones that were left, are the ones that the PNDC and the NDC inherited.

“So, we are pleading with the NPP government; the fact that the factory was established under the NDC administration should not be the reason to allow the factory to rot,” Mr Spio-Garbrah said.