The Government of Ghana has to revamp moribund factories and companies before new ones are set up, Solomon Kotei, General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), has said.
According to him, although the plan to create more factories in all the districts is good, there are some companies such as the West Africa Mils Company Limited (WAMCo) that are struggling and will need government intervention to survive.
He told Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Monday February 20: “It is exhilarating that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government intends to establish one factory in each district because that will create more jobs for the teeming youth of this country. It will also get rid of people selling on the streets. But the issue is that as we speak most existing factories are struggling and that has resulted in redundancies.
“An example is the West Africa Mills Company Limited (WAMCo). This is a company that has international recognition and its products are accepted on the international market but the factory is in a sorry state at the moment. Workers are not being paid, most of them have also been rendered redundant. Similarly, we have GTP and the Akosombo Textiles that are also struggling.
“And so we think that it will be ideal to salvage these factories from collapsing before we think of establishing new ones. The problems that confront these factories – proliferation of foreign companies in Ghana and others – should also guide the government in the creation of new factories, other than that those new factories may suffer the same fate as the already existing ones.
“We agree that the One-District-One-Factory is a good initiative by all standards, but the ICU leadership is saying that if possible those existing factories should be revamped before we think of creating new ones.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
