Okyereko (C/R), Feb 17, GNA – Mr Francis Kudzordzi, the General Manager of Kantanka Automobile Company Limited, has entreated government to tactically approach the establishment of the Automotive Development Support Centre.
He told the Ghana News Agency that the government must put its best foot forward by focusing on where it had absolute advantage in terms of resources for component manufacturing.
“For example, if we have rubber in commercial quantities and that rubber can be converted to automobile tyres, why don’t we concentrate on that and then do glasses the following year, and then if we have aluminium and those other minerals, we manufacture some of the metallic parts,” he added.
The Automotive Development Support Centre is a government initiative, spearheaded by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, aimed at promoting “innovative” vehicle financing and regulating vehicle standards in the country.
The centre, which is expected to be completed this year, also aims at facilitating the domestication of the automotive industry through the local manufacture of components, parts and accessories by Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) to supply local assemblers.
Already, the President, as part of making an industrial hub, in 2020 laid the foundation stone for the construction of a foundry and machine tooling centre, which will facilitate the production of a broad range of metal and plastic elements at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission in the Ga East Municipality.
Describing the support centre as a good initiative, Mr Kudzordzi urged government to stay committed to the project to achieve the stated objective.
“The main issue is the component manufacturing, and the components are many so you will limit yourself to where you have absolute advantage.
“…it’s graduation from one stage to the other; knowing where your advantage is and then working towards it to achieve whatever objective there is,” he added.
Touching on the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Kantanka Automobile General Manager, argued that the implementation of the agreement should rather focus on industrialising the Continent instead of trade.
He further suggested that the implementers of the pact had put the cart before the horse and questioned what the participating countries would be trading when they were not producing.
“We have to produce before we sell. You don’t have products, yet you say you are selling. Why, are you going to import or what. We shouldn’t be thinking about trading now; we should have industrialised first,” he said
In his view, what Africa needed to do was to go back to the basics and start making industrial production machines and equipment.
“All we need is a foundry. If we are forging most of the machines, we won’t go to anywhere to procure machines to use,” Mr Kudzordzi said.
GNA