The chairman of the Trade and Industry Committee of Parliament, Kingsley Carlos Ahenkorah has said the Komenda Sugar Factory could not have produced raw sugar due to the absence of its 37 components.
He claimed that the facility was evaluated at $12 million by the Price Waterhouse firm in 2017 and went on to demonstrate that roughly 37 components or portions of the factory were not fixed, making it impossible for the factory to manufacture raw sugar as claimed by the then-NDC government to fool Ghanaians.
partner in strategy
But he told Ghanaians that as soon as the government secured a smart investor, the Komenda sugar factory would start producing.
He stated that the search for a strategic partner was still ongoing and that the organization chosen will soon be made public.
He stated that the factory’s renovation work has already started and that once the strategic partner was found, the factory would be put into operation.
When the Trade and Industry Committee’s minority members visited the Komenda Sugar Factory last Monday, Mr Carlos Ahenkorah was replying to their remarks.
After the tour, the group said that the current administration had lost money for the state on the Komenda sugar mill.
Rebuttal
But in response to the allegations made by the minority members of the committee, Mr Ahenkorah, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema West, said the former NDC government should take responsibility for the factory’s current state because it misled Ghanaians when it inaugurated the facility in 2016 by claiming that it had begun producing sugar, when in fact the sugar on display that day had been purchased from somewhere.
According to him, pricing water house coopers assessment of the facility conducted in 2017, shortly after the NPP administration assumed control of the government, showed that the Komenda sugar mill was unable to produce raw sugar because it lacked 37 of its required components.
Approximately 37 components or portions of the factory, he claimed, were not corrected when the pricing water house coopers firm appraised the facility at $12 million in 2017.
The factory could not manufacture raw sugar, contrary to what the then-NDC government had led Ghanaians to believe, he said.
This was revealed, he claimed, when the NPP government hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to assess the factory’s value in order to determine its current value as of 2017. However, the NDC administration at the time stated that it had spent $35 million on the factory’s renovations.
The trip
In an interview, Mr Ahenkorah said he was shocked to see only the minority members of the trade and industry committee when they recently visited the Komenda sugar factory because the committee had not decided to do so and the visit had not been announced to the entire committee.
He asserted that the charge made against the NPP administration by the minority members of the committee was baseless and a deliberate effort to cast doubt in the eyes of Ghanaians about the NPP administration’s resolve to address the factory’s current status.
He continued by saying that the same NDC government was responsible for the Komenda sugar factory’s poor condition because it misled Ghanaians into believing that the factory had produced raw sugar while, in reality, it had simply purchased raw sugar on credit from a company without making a payment.
According to the chair of the trade and industry committee, the committee has decided to visit the Komenda sugar factory soon along with the minister of trade and industry, price water house coopers, the media, and if possible, the finance ministry to inform Ghanaians of the factory’s true condition and put an end to the matter.