Komenda Sugar Factory starts production

The Komenda Sugar Factory, whose operations have generated some controversy, has begun the production of sugar for the local market.

The Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, and the Central Regional Minister, Mr Kweku Ricketts Hagan, who made this known at the Government for the People Forum in Cape Coast yesterday, gave indications that the factory had begun bagging sugar meant for consumption.

The forum provided the platform for the dissemination of information regarding the policies and programmes of the government and their impact on the people. 

The ministers said the factory had begun bagging its first sugar. 

Two containers of sugar from the factory were shown to participants in the forum.

President John Dramani Mahama inaugurated the Komenda Sugar Factory on May 30, 2016, but the factory has been the source of political debate, with many political opponents saying it was not viable.

Arguments

They have also argued that the government has not put in place the needed raw materials for supply to the factory to guarantee sustained production.

Officials of the government have debunked such pessimism and sought to prove that the factory has not been shut down, as is being speculated.

Sugar

Later, Dr Omane Boamah, still seeking to prove that the sugar was consumable, in response to some comments that the sugar produced was not consumable, poured a teaspoonful of sugar into his month.

He also poured some into the palms of many others, including this reporter, to taste.

It was sweetened granular brownish white, between the colour of the ordinary white sugar and brown sugar.

Dr Omane Boamah said the nearly 7,000 jobs to be created by the factory would change the lives of many people in and around the factory’s catchment area.

He said the government would steadily but surely work to reduce imports through industrialisation.

Industrialisation

Mr Ricketts Hagan could not tell how much of the sugar would be produced a day, but said bagged sugar from the factory would soon be on the market after all tests and certification processes had been concluded.

He said the government was committed to revitalising all collapsed factories and constructing new ones as part of its commitment to create jobs and better the lives of Ghanaians.

He said the government would prioritise the maintenance of all the factories to prevent them from collapse, saying the factories to be resuscitated and the new ones to be built would not be made to suffer what many of the factories that were built by Dr Kwame Nkrumah experienced.