Komenda Sugar Factory must lead our industrialisation agenda

The revamping of the Komenda Sugar Factory and the plans by the government to fashion a national sugar policy that will create the enabling environment for the sugar industry to thrive are welcome pieces of news.

An encouraging outcome of the revamping of the factory is the number of jobs, both direct and indirect, that will be created.

Information available indicates that jobs in excess of 7,000 will be created and that is indicative of hope for a good number of our youth who continue to idle about or travel to the national capital in search of non-existent jobs.

But while we revel in the socio-economic benefits that we as a nation stand to reap from the revamping of the Komenda Sugar Factory, we need to take careful stock of some of the factors that had led to the collapse of state-owned factories in the past.

Some factories that readily come to mind are the Ayensu Starch Factory, the GIHOC Shoe Factory (now Defence Industries Holding Company (DIHOC) Shoes Division), the Asutsuare Sugar Factory and the Juapong Textiles Limited (now Volta Star Textiles), which has fickle status.

It has been said time and again that our tendency as a nation to operate an import-dependent economy will not bring the needed growth until we place much emphasis on adding value to our raw materials to feed the local economy and export the surplus to earn foreign currency.

Clearly, the revamped sugar factory, if supplied with the required raw materials, will be able to provide the state the option of saving the huge sum of $200 million that is spent every year to import sugar.

However, the Daily Graphic is wary of the tendency on our part to preach patronage of local products but lack the political will to enforce such policies, especially on state institutions which, in spite of local alternatives, still import consumables at a higher cost to the taxpayer.

It is instructive to note that until we succeed at enforcing ‘patronise made-in-Ghana’ policies, we will not be giving the much-needed support to our local industries.

One other factor that contributed to the collapse of state-owned factories in the past was the practice of people seeing state-owned businesses as belonging to the state and, therefore, belonging to nobody.

That is why the Daily Graphic is of the view that there should be an active involvement of the private sector in the running of these institutions in order to inject some seriousness into their operations to make them lucrative and viable.

So much, by way of investment, has been injected into the resurrection of the Komenda Sugar Factory and so if things should continue as business as usual, then we will end up shooting ourselves in the foot, while so much of the taxpayer’s money would have gone down the drain.

We need a serious change in our attitude towards state-owned ventures and the patronage of locally manufactured products.

The surest means to accelerated development is when we produce what we eat and eat what we produce, for there is no doubt that agriculture and manufacturing hold the key to success in the development process.

That option has become even more crucial in view of our latest status as a middle-income economy and the withdrawal of the support that we enjoyed from our donor partners in the past.

Let us take our destiny into our own hands.