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The Minority Caucus in Parliament has pushed back against assertions made by the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, regarding the delay in operationalizing the Komenda Sugar Factory in the Central Region.
In a statement signed by Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader in Parliament, and shared with the Ghana News Agency in Takoradi, the Minority refuted Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah’s claim blaming them for the factory’s stalled progress.
The statement addressed Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah’s reported statement, where he attributed the failure to operationalize the Komenda Sugar Factory to the opposition of certain tax waivers by the Minority in Parliament. The Minority dismissed this assertion as false, clarifying that there were currently no requests for tax waivers related to the Komenda Sugar Factory before Parliament.
Furthermore, the statement highlighted that the ongoing tax waiver requests pending before the Finance Committee of Parliament did not include any proposals concerning the Komenda Sugar Factory. Therefore, the Minority could not be held responsible for impeding the progress of the factory.
Instead, the statement placed the blame squarely on the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP administration, which inherited a revamped Komenda Sugar Factory in 2017 from the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. The factory had undergone revitalization in 2016, with a $35 million Indian Export-Import (EXIM) Bank facility, supplemented by an additional $24 million to support sugar cane out-growers to supply the factory.
The Minority emphasized the potential of the factory to generate over 7000 jobs and significantly reduce Ghana’s reliance on sugar imports. They noted previous promises made by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and former Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyeremanteng, during visits to the factory, assuring its operationalization. However, these pledges have yet to materialize.
