By P.K. Yankey
Takoradi, April 15, GNA – The Minority Caucus in Parliament has refuted claims by the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, that the Minority was responsible for the delay in operationalising the Komenda Sugar Factory in the Central Region.
This was contained in a statement signed by Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader in Parliament, and copied to Ghana News Agency in Takoradi.
According to the statement, Mr Oppong-Nkrumah was reported to have blamed the Minority in Parliament for the failure of the government to operationalise the Komenda Sugar Factory.
“In his attempt to justify his government’s I competences, the Minister claims the Minority’s opposition to certain tax waivers before Parliament is to be blamed for abandoning the Komenda Sugar Factory by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government,” the statement said.
The statement described the claim as false, saying there was currently no such request for tax waiver before Parliament in respect of the Komenda Sugar Factory.
It said: “For the record, the over GHS5.5 billion worth of unconscionable tax waivers to crony businesses of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government currently pending before the Finance Committee of Parliament, do not include any such request as claimed by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.”
The Minority could therefore not be blamed for stalling the Komenda Sugar Factory.
“On the contrary, such blame must laid squarely at the doorstep of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP administration, which inherited a revamped Komenda Sugar Factory when power was handed over to them in 2017,” the statement noted.
The statement, said the factory was revamped in 2016 by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, with a $35 million Indian Export-Import (EXIM) Bank facility, with an additional $24 million equally secured to support sugar cane out-growers to feed the factory
The statement said the factory was expected to create over 7000 jobs and substantially reduce Ghana’s sugar importation.
It said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo after a tour of the facility in 2021, promised the chiefs and people of Komenda that his government was going to open the factory by March 2022.
It said: “Following a similar working visit to the factory in 2022, then Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyeremanteng also promised to ensure that the factory becomes operational but that again did not see the light of day.
GNA