President John Dramani Mahama has given an assurance that the government will aggressively pursue an economic transformation agenda to enable industry to take full advantage of it.
“As President, I wish to restate my government’s commitment to the agenda for transformation and assure our business community that we will continue to roll out policies, including incentive packages, that will inure to the benefit of those who invest in the manufacturing sector,” he said.
The President was speaking at the inauguration of the 800,000-tonne cement mill at the Takoradi Plant of the Ghana Cement Company (GHACEM) at the Takoradi Port yesterday.
The 23-million euros expansion project will bring the production capacity of the Takoradi Plant to two million tonnes annually.
This brings the total capacity of GHACEM’s Tema and Takoradi plants to 4.2 million tonnes per annum.
Investment
President Mahama said investments being undertaken in Ghana were testimony to the fact that the country remained the preferred choice for investment, despite some temporary setbacks.
He added that opportunities would continue to be created to attract the necessary investment into the country.
He commended GHACEM for being one of the local manufacturing companies that had embraced the government’s call for local content.
In its quest to demonstrate its commitment to local content, he said, GHACEM sourced more than 25 per cent of its raw materials, mainly limestone, for production locally.
He said the company also used about 30 per cent of locally manufactured cement paper bags and offered jobs to thousands of Ghanaians in its line of operation.
He said the local content policy did not apply to only the oil and gas sector but other companies that invested in the country.
The President touched on the patronage of locally manufactured goods and said that would enable companies to expand their operations.
Electricity
As expected, Mr Mahama touched on the power challenges facing the country and reassured manufacturing companies that everything was being done to address those challenges as soon as possible.
He said the government was working hard to bring a number of thermal plants on stream and an additional 1,000 megawatts of emergency power.
Responding to GHACEM’s complaint about the importation of low quality cement, he said the Ministry of Trade and Industry would review the petition and take the appropriate action on it.
Managing director
For his part, the Managing Director of GHACEM, Mr Morten Gade, said the operations of the company had a chain of added values in terms of industrial competence, employment, direct investment, local sub-contracting and the use of local raw materials.
He said the company, which contributes revenue in the areas of dividends and tax to the state, would continue to maintain its quality and standards.
GHACEM, he said, would continue to contribute to the economic development of the country with adequate investment exclusively tailored towards the nation’s needs as far as cement production was concerned.
Mr Gade said the current investment in GHACEM expansion at its two locations in Takoradi and Tema between 2012 and 2015 was valued at $52 million.
