Minority Demands Details Of Sale Of Komenda Sugar Factory

The Minority in Parliament has demanded details in the sale of the Komenda Sugar Factory as it accuses government of deliberately running down the company to reduce its value.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Deputy Ranking Member for the Committee on Trade and Industry, Yusif Sulemana said the factory could have been sustained if the government had invested more into it.

“This is a project we borrowed over $37million dollars to revive it and today you are selling the factory at $28million. What happens to the difference? How are we going to pay the rest of the money?”

He continued, “There is a strategy to allow the factory deteriorate so that it could be sold at a knocked down price to cronies and friends and that is what we have seen.”

The government announced on Tuesday that a strategic investor is willing to invest $28million into the Komenda Sugar Factory commissioned by Former President John Dramani Mahama in 2016. Park Aggrotech Company Limited, a subsidiary of the Skylark Group of companies from India won the bid to manage the sugar factory.

The Ranking Member accused the government particularly the Trade and Industry Ministry for neglecting the factory for its current deplorable state. “How can you claim to bring on board more factories when you are collapsing existing ones,” he quizzed.

Mr Sulemana acknowledged that industralisation is essential to boost Ghana’s economy, however, government and Ghanaians must patronise the goods locally made to grow the industries. He further promised the Minority will investigate the process through which Park Aggrotech Company Limited won the bid, for the purpose of transparency and accountability.