John Dramani Mahama
H.E. John Dramani Mahama, the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress, stated in his recent campaign tour in the Upper East Region that he will restore the Zuarungu Meat Factory if he wins the presidential election in December.
In 1965, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana established the Zuarungu Meat Product Company Limited to produce canned beef for domestic and foreign markets.
But after thirty years of existence, it was closed down in 1995 due to various reasons.
Ghana is 90% dependent on meat imports, and if frozen meat importers lock their doors, it is expected that the nation will run out of beef in one week and chicken in five days.
A major contributor to the strain on the local currency due to exchange rates is meat imports, which amount to approximately 243 thousand metric tons, or 2.4 billion dollars annually.
Regretfully, it is expected that thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue will be lost along the supply chain, which runs from Ghana's primary meat import suppliers, Burkina Faso, Niger, South America, and Europe, from the farm gate to the processing floors and sales outlet.
John Mahama said he would resurrect the nation to run on a 24-hour economy in order to ensure that many young people in the region have work to reduce unemployment and poverty.
“When we come to office in 2025, it’s about jobs, jobs and jobs. And that is why we are advocating the 24-hour economy. When I was doing the ‘Building Ghana Tour’, I promised Zuarungu Naba and all the chiefs here, that one of our priorities when we come back, will be to revive Kwame Nkrumah’s Zuarungu Meat Factory. And when we revive the meat factory, it will work 24 hours so that all the youth here will have work to do,” he noted.
