Kwesi Appiah invests €14.5m in solar factory at Ashaiman

Head Coach of the Black Stars, Kwesi Appiah and his business partners Appiah -Karim Company Ltd and Palmer Group Company have announced plans to establish a solar manufacturing company in Ashaiman Municipality to produce solar panels on commercial quantities to boost.

The 14.5 Million Euros solar facility, which is being supported by German Government when established, is expected to provide immediate jobs to about 500 youth in Ashaiman.

Officials of the Appiah-Karim Company Ltd and Palmer Group Company Ltd, which are both Ghanaian owned businesses based in USA and Germany disclose this after they concluded discussions on the project with the Ashaiman Municipal Chief Executive Albert Boakye Okyere and some staff of the Assembly.

Speaking to Oman FM, the President of Palmer Group Company, George Palmer explained that the objective of factory is to produce solar panels for both domestic and industrial use adding that “we are also going to set up a whole training facility to train the youth in solar panel fabrication as well as putting up marketing and service centre to offer 24 hour services.”

Asked why the group decided to invest in Ashaiman and not elsewhere, he said, the group realized that Ashaiman is the fastest growing town in the country, but because of lack of jobs the youth are getting themselves involved in criminal activities, thus increasing social vices in the municipality.

According to him, the group believes when the youth in the municipality get decent work to they will desist from criminal activities, saying “we’re sure that with the establishment of the factory social vices being witnessed in the municipality will be minimized.

“Our focus is on Ashaiman because first of all we want to create employment to solve the problems we see in this municipality…Youth unemployment is the cause of all the social vices we see. And so we want to try our best to address these social vices by putting the youth back to work,” Mr George Palmer stressed.

He urged the residents of Ashaiman to support the initiative, assuring that the group is ready to do other things to improve thousands of lives and also transform the municipality.

The Ashaiman Municipal Chief Executive Mr. Albert Boakye Okyere, who commended the group for their decision to invest in Ashaiman, said the Assembly exists to improve the livelihood of the people by championing development in the Municipality and therefore has opened its doors to private investors who want to invest in Ashaiman.

“Our interest is to get work for the young people in the Municipality so anything that goes with creating jobs we see it to be welcome news,” he said.

Mr. Albert Okyere, who described the unemployment situation in the Municipality as worrying, is convinced the yet- to -be established solar panel manufacturing company and other private sector initiatives of the Assembly will go a long way to reduce unemployment situation in the area.

He said the Assembly has already made land available for the project to commence.