The Chronicle reports that the controversial 100,000 metric tones per year rice plant sited at Aveyime, near Battor in the Volta Region, has actually been in operation for the past 98 days.
At least 45,000 bags of paddy rice were milled within this period and pushed onto the Ghanaian market and about ?300 million realized as charges, deposited at the Mepe Community Rural Bank, also in the Volta Region, the paper says.
?The irony of it is that the six-man staff of technicians and a driver have embarked on a strike action in demand for their pay for the last month. It is expected to last until Friday, if the pay was not forthcoming. Their combined pay is in the region of ?3million.
The Chronicle undercover investigation at the plant revealed that either the world is not being told the truth about the plant or our leaders just want to discredit gains by their predecessors.?
The findings are that the Afife Rice Project and the Kpong Irrigation Project (KIP) are feeding the brand new rice mill with paddy rice everyday, as they convey them in articulated trucks from the two projects.
The main project at Doveh that stretches from Bakpah to Kebenu has been stopped bringing untold hardship to the citizens whose only source of employment is the rice project.
In the yard lying at the mercy of the weather are parked pieces of equipment, ranging from pumps to bulldozers.
?A cursory count revealed three CASE combined harvesters, three CASE tractors, three John Deere tractors, six bulldozers, one excavator, three Gator pumps, two Ford pick-ups, one with registration number GT 2239 N, the other without a registration number, and trailers, 90 heavy-duty brand new water pumps, two caterpillar power generators, 150 diagonal Stam weedecide drums, 700 bags of fertilizer, while a storm had ripped off the roofing sheets of what looked like a waterhouse, containing unspecified items that the reporter learnt are valuable.?
According to the Chronicle story, at the main plant, several thousand bags of milled rice are ready for transportation to the markets by the Afife Rice Project through its distributor REMMAR Rice (Afife long grain) whose representative, Samuel Tawiah, keeps an eagle?s eye so as not to lose even a grain.
The Kpong Irrigation Project at Asutsuare has IMEXCO Ghana Limited as sole distributor and has Mr. J.K. Hagan as its representative.
Further enquiry revealed that the name of the project has been changed from Quality Grains Company to Aveyime Rice Project since it started milling rice for Afife and KIP on February 12, this year.
The milling process, the paper says, starts from a receiving pit, through wet paddy bin, scalperator, a drier, partial dry bin, silos (storage tanks), day-tanks to the mill separators whose both broken and full ones after polishing are finally bagged.
Information gathered has it that an American, Fred Colehen (Smilley), started installation of the loose fittings of the plant on February 8, 1997, the same period as the farm at Doveh, which is about 17 kilometres from Aveyime. The Aveyime project continued till April 25, last year, when it was stopped.
The equipment remained at the farm, which, together with the plant, was employing about 300 persons, but an order was given for their removal from the project site.
Strangely, security personnel put on duty get no ration and are starving to the amazement of the townfolk. Six policemen drawn from various districts of the Volta Region and eight Fire Service personnel also from the same region started manning the place since June, last year, were provided with two bags of rice in January this year.
The deputy chief executive of the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA), Mr. D.N. Ohemeng, who is chairman of the Interim Management Committee (IMC), alleged to be a signatory to the account at the Mepe Community Rural Bank, together with the DCE, was not readily available for comments on the whereabouts of Ms. Cotton?s green Nissan Patrol vehicle and two others that some claimed have been sent to the State House in Accra.
Strenuous efforts revealed names of the personnel manning the plant whose strike action has temporarily halted operations. ?They are Nassie Richard, mill engineer, Emmanuel Kabutey, welder, David Gblie, electrician, Charles Aperstrom, mechanic, Morle Komlagah, bookkeeper and Ezekiel Monyueh, driver.
Further inquiry indicates that a certain Oduro, project manager at Afife, was assisted by a Mr. Opoku to haul paddy rice to Aveyime but the users of the rice mill at Akuse were directed by a state official to use the Aveyime plant.?
The paramount chief of Bator Traditional Area, Togbi Torklah, was also not available for any reaction, but a few citizens who thought the presence of the rice project would create jobs for them want government to come out openly and reactivate the farms, now that the rice mill is working with paddy rice feeding it from elsewhere.
?One of those interviewed in the town, fuming with anger, said they are aware that the technicians manning the plant would not have been there now, if they had not had the secret to the plant.
According to him, these were the people who assisted Fred Colehen in the installation work. He wondered whether this project would have been stopped were it to be in support for the present government.
Simply put, he went on, it is a way to starve them because of their unflinching support for the past National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. State projects must be insulated from party politics, he concluded.?
