DIHOC Footwear management denies sidelining Defence Ministry

The majority shareholder in the Defence Industries Holiday Company DIHOC Footwear Division Limited, Knight Ghana Limited, has dismissed claims by the Minister of Defence that the ministry has been sidelined in the management of the divested company.

The company also challenged the ministry to investigate why part of a GH¢6 million grant from the then Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF) meant for the factory was used by Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to pay for its 40 per cent equity in the company which had been long overdue.

The acting General Manager of DIHOC Footwear, Nii Laryea, said this in reaction to some issues raised by the Minister of Defence, Mr Dominic Nitiwul, at the meet-the-press series in Accra last week.

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Ministry’s issues

Among other issues, Mr Nitiwul had said the private managers of DIHOC Footwear, also known as the Kumasi Shoe Factory, had failed to render accounts of its operations as expected.

He said the company was being run by one man who had decided to take decisions on everything, resulting in a situation where the products of the company were not patronised.

The Defence Minister said DIHOC Footwear trained over 200 workers but because of irregular orders, only one-third of them were currently working.

Reacting to the issues at a press conference in Accra yesterday, Mr Nii Laryea said the minister was being misled by “faceless people behind a scheme to collapse the company”.

“This is a big business for them and as long as DIHOC Footwear is in operation, it is a threat to their smooth importation of boots and shoes for the security agencies,” and we the management of DIHOC Footwear know these enemies of progress to this forward march of our great country,” he stated.

Mr Laryea said at the appropriate time, they would name and shame those behind efforts to thwart the smooth running of the company.

“We want to put it on record that the government has not given a GH¢6 million grant to an individual on behalf of the company and the minister has not got his facts right,” he said.

While admitting that some of the things the minister said were true, he wondered why those particular challenges should be attributed to the management of the company when, contrary to the agreements establishing the company, the security services — the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana National Fire Service, the Ghana Prisons Service, the Ghana Immigration Service and even the shareholder, the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) — still ordered their boots and shoes from China and India.

Challenges

Mr Laryea said the company had started with 200 staff, with projections to increase the workforce to 800 within three years, but was compelled to reduce the number to 49 because of the persistent refusal of the security services to keep the company in business.

He urged the Defence Minister to proffer solutions and consider how he could use his office to rally ministers responsible for the security services, education and finance to patronise the products of the company, instead of resorting to the blame game.

With little success, the management of DIHOC had tried to engage the minister on issues pertaining to the factory, including the presentation of a detailed report on the prospects and challenges of the company to the minister, but had not received any response from him, more than nine months after he had assumed office, he noted.

International community

Mr Laryea said the company was forced to react to the allegation because the minister’s comment had been widely published on the global electronic media, adding that “This has international consequences for the company, as well as the bilateral business relations between Ghana and the Czech Republic”.