The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah has insisted that KEDA Ceramics Ghana Limited; a Chinese tile and ceramic manufacturing company in the Shama District of the Western Region, is under the government’s one district one factory (1D1F) initiative.
The NDC in the region had consistently maintained that the factory could not be under the 1D1F project since its establishment began during the tenure of former President John Dramani Mahama.
However, setting the records straight, the regional minister asserted that the NDC were ignorant of the various efforts by the current government to ensure that the investors secured the facility.
“The continuity of the company was challenged to a greater extent, and that realizing the opportunities inherent in government’s 1D1F initiative, the investors signed up to it,” he explained.
He continued, “When we promoted 1D1F, the company registered with the initiative. We didn’t force them but they registered.”
He said through the effort of the president, the finance ministry granted the company a tax waver of US$49 million. “So I want the NDC to check how KEDA Ceramics started,” he stressed.
The regional minister gave the explanation during an interaction with the media in the region at a lunch with journalists, organized at the Regional Coordinating Council in Sekondi.
Darko-Mensah explained that the company was overwhelmed with some critical issues that could have aborted the entire project.
“My office had to intervene to address land acquisition problems at the very first months of my appointment which paved way for the commencement of phase three of the project,” he revealed.
He advised the NDC not to meddle in the matter because they could not make a claim to the establishment of the factory.
He disclosed that a tuna processing factory would soon be established in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis in the coming months, as part of government’s industrialization agenda.
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