President John Dramani Mahama has promised to construct a factory at Shama in the Western Region if retained in the December 7 elections.

Presenting highlights of the governing National Democratic Congress’ 2016 manifesto on Tuesday, September 13 in Accra, Mr Mahama said: “We have an agreement with a strategic investor … [for fertiliser production]. As soon as we have more than enough gas coming from the Eni field, then we can release some of the associated gas for fertiliser production. For those who don’t know it, gas is used to produce fertiliser and, so, we already have the land in Shama ready and a fertiliser factory is going to be built in Shama to produce fertiliser for Ghana”.

Touching on his government’s achievement in the energy sector, Mr Mahama said his vision is to see Ghana become a petroleum hub for West Africa.

“We have revamped the Tema Oil Refinery and it is working properly. We are looking to expand the refinery, next door to the refinery, there is additional land, so, we will commence the construction of a new refinery on that site that will produce 100,000 barrels of petroleum products per day. The current refinery has a capacity of about 60,000 barrels and, so, it will increase our refined products production to 160,000 barrels. We want to become the petroleum hub of West Africa so that we become the main suppliers of petroleum products to the whole of West Africa. Already that is happening; we are supplying Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso with petroleum products. Every day, 40 articulated tractors are loaded with petroleum products to those three landlocked countries from the Bolgatanga depot,” he stated.

According to Mr Mahama, in his second term as president, should he win the December 7 polls, “We are going to set up the integrated aluminum industry – that is revitalise VALCO and then set up an aluminum plant. We shall introduce industrial salt production, caustic soda production, and chlorine production”.