Senior Minister-designate Yaw Osafo Marfo has said that the Akufo-Addo administration will put structures in place to resuscitate the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) to take its rightful position in the smelting of alumina in the country.
“We have a lot of bauxite and we must go back to integrate it by converting bauxite to alumina to enable VALCO use it. It is an integration the government has mentioned in the manifesto and, therefore, VALCO will be encouraged to operate. We have to find ourselves the power and I think we will do it,” Mr Marfo told the Appointments Committee on Friday, 20 January during his vetting session.
The former Finance Minister said: “VALCO’s problem is availability of power” and government will do its best to have the company operate at an ideal capacity.
Mr Marfo added: “It will be my wish that VALCO operates. We need VALCO because we need to push the aluminium integrated project concept.”
VALCO, one of the flagship projects of late President Kwame Nkrumah, has suffered a myriad challenges, especially with energy supply in recent years.
Meanwhile, Mr Osafo Marfo has lamented the poor management of the economy, indicating that the economy of the country should be “running and not crawling”.
He was optimistic that government would do a diligent job in propelling Ghana’s economy to higher heights.
Mr Marfo stated that with prudent management of the economy, enough funds could be raised to address many challenges.
According to him, “fundamentally, Ghana’s economy is strong”, adding: “What is left is the management of the resources. Debt-servicing is seven per cent of GDP, growth is three per cent of GDP. Teachers and nurses’ allowance is 0.1 per cent of GDP, so you can more than pay those allowances if you manage resources well.”
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