President Mahama told Ghanaians that he was the only President of Ghana, who was born after independence and so he is young. If yours sincerely is to go by what he said then the president was born too late to see the Komenda Sugar Factory, which was established in the early sixties by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
I was schooling in Takoradi when the Komenda Sugar Factory was operating fully and even had the opportunity to do some vocational employment there anytime we had our long term vacation. President Mahama never had that opportunity so I know more of the factory than he does.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was a visionary leader who thought ahead. We used to import cube sugar like Bouchon and St Louis from Britain for home consumption. In fact, in those days we did not see granulated sugar at the markets.
To begin with, the CPP government brought in specialist to make feasibility study of the intended sugar factory and they recommended special sugarcane species to be planted and to be used as a raw material for the intended factory. Before the factory was built, the country had huge sugarcane plantation stretching all the way from Winneba Junction to the outskirts of Cape Coast.
If you drove from Winneba Junction to Cape Coast all that you would see on both sides of the road were sugarcane plantations. Before the factory took off, the raw materials were ready for harvest. Large number of tractors were imported to cart the harvested sugar cane to the factory.
In those days electricity and other utility tariffs were very negligible and so the Sugar factory was producing and making more profit. You increase utility tariffs beyond the reach of your countrymen and you clandestinely bring in some Indians to tell us that you have built a new Sugar factory and you want me to believe that it will be sustainable? When factories in Ghana are dismissing workers and in some cases closing down entirely because of high electricity bills and other taxes, you will find it very difficult to convince me that you can build only one sugar factory to employ more than seven thousand workers.
The General A.A Afrifa and his khaki boys who overthrew the Osagyefo’s government made sure the factory was in operation because the country did not have the luxury to import sugar since all the sugar cane plantations were intact and the machinery at the factory was also as good as they were brought in by Osagyefo.
Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia took over in 1969 and continued from where Afrifa and his men left off as far as the Komenda Sugar Factory was concerned.
When General Kutu Acheampong overthrew Professor Busiah, he never touched the factory and even asked for the machines to be serviced so that the factory could produce at its maximum capacity. As at the time Dr. Hilla Limann too took over, the factory, like many others were in operation until Flt Lt. Rawlings and his (P)NDC came storming to overthrow Dr. Limann in 1981. It was the (P)NDC regime that totally collapsed the Komenda Sugar Factory and went ahead to diversify it.
You see, where I come from if as a family member you destroy a family property and turn round to pretend to repair it, the first thing elders in the family would do is to reprimand you seriously. I have been forced to commend on this issue because the propaganda surrounding the whole Komenda Factory is irritating. We have barely five months to the November 7 General Election and Mr. Mahama and his NDC propagandists are making it look as if the NDC government has built a new Sugar Factory.
You wait and see if you can get a made in Komenda Sugar at our markets in even a year’s time. And those who are waiting to join the more than seven thousand intended jobs to be created should better get something doing because it is going to be like the promise they gave to the people of Pwalugu that they have revamped the tomato factory there and that the young men and women who troop to the big cities to look for non-existing jobs will no more go there because jobs will be created to absorb all of them. Today the youth in the three northern regions are rather trooping to Burkina Faso to work on tomato farms while the Pwalugu Tomato Factory is still in the thicket inhabited by rats, reptiles and grass cutters
Take the issue of cashew nuts for example. In the Brong Ahafo Region, part of Ashanti Region and the Northern Region’s one major cash crop which is cultivated by many farmers is cashew. In 2012, an Indian Company called Raj Kumar Impex built a very large cashew processing factory at Techiman to process cashew for export.
That factory used to employ more than one thousand direct workers and was supposed to process fifty tons of cashew a day. For the past two and half years the factory has closed down and laid off all the workers. Reasons? The dumsor, high electricity tariff and unbearable taxes.
The Raj Kumar Impex has similar company in India with bigger equipment which processes five times cashew nuts than what its counterpart in Ghana does. Sadly, that big cashew processing factory in India pays far less electricity bills than the comparatively small factory in Ghana. If you were the owner of such a factory will you continue to produce in Ghana?
At the same Techiman, a wholly owned Ghanaian cashew processing factory called Ghananut is located at the outskirts of the town. That factory used to process twenty tons of cashew nuts a day. Like Raj Kumar Impex, it also employs a lot of workers. Today because of high electricity bills, the company has moved to Burkina Faso and processes sixty tons of cashew nuts a day and pays far less electricity bills. So as it stands now, cashew farmers who used to sell their products to these factories are at the cross roads. They have no choice but to sell their cashew nuts to other businessmen who export them.
That was the reason why the cashew farmers in these areas went mad when the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Ekwow Spio Garbra banned the exportation of raw cashew nuts. Even when Mr. Garbra suspended his order, the farmers were still apprehensive so he had to rush to the Brong Ahafo Region to meet the farmers in order to iron things out with them.
What Mr. Garbra did not know before leaving the Brong Ahafo Region was that the cashew farmers have come to realize that when they vote for the NDC again, Mr. Garbra will ban the exportation of raw cashew nuts. When Nana Akufo Addo went to Sampa in the Brong Ahafo Region recently to promise the cashew farmers that when he becomes the president of Ghana he will establish a Cashew Marketing Board the promise shook the very foundation of the NDC.
So during his so – called “Accounting to the people” tour, President Mahama also went to Techiman to say when he is retained as the president of Ghana, he will also establish a Cashew Marketing Board. Copy cat!
During the 2008 electioneering campaign, Nana Akufo Addo, the flagbearer of the NPP told the people of the three northern regions that when voted into power, his government will establish Northern Development Fund (NDF).
When NDC realised that the promise went down well with the people of the three northern regions, they(NDC) quickly said they too will establish Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). Indeed, they did set up the SADA but what happened? It became an avenue to create, loot and share.
What I consider to be most funny was the appeal the president made to landowners to donate land for people to plant sugar cane to feed the factory he had commissioned. What if the land owners refuse to give out their land for the cultivation of sugar cane? Is the president going to issue a Presidential fiat, forcing them to donate their land?
The Akans say unless you see your woman, you don’t lay your bed. As for Mr. Mahama, he laid his bed, waiting for the woman to come. What if the woman fails to come? Anka wobe te wo piiga!
The president and his men of looters are very desperate because defeat is staring them in the face. People are really suffering under this regime and much as the president and his looters try to convince Ghanaians to retain them in power, the more angry people become at the sheer idea of voting the NDC into power again.
The ages say only a fool will allow his testicles to be trampled upon twice (Kwasia hwea yen tiaso mprenu). When you say the NDC has been in power for seven and half years, they tell you John Mahama has been in power for three and half years. They have forgotten that when John Mahama was the Vice President to the late Professor Mills, he (John Mahama) was the chairman of the Economic Management Team. If he had managed the economy well, will the country be facing the type of mess that we are facing today? The die is cast. Simplista!!!
Columnist: Eric Bawah
