The Akufo-Addo government has announced that it is finalising a 20-year lease arrangement with a new investor to inject funds into the Komenda Sugar Development Company Limited to restore and maintain its operations.

The factory, built in 1964, became defunct over 30 years ago due to technical difficulties and mismanagement.

Previous governments have unsuccessfully tried to operationalise the factory and provide jobs to the teeming unemployed youth in Komenda and surrounding areas.

GhanaWeb examines the two times in eight years the government has tried to restart Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's legacy project.

June 2019

In June 2019, the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administration, through the Ministry of Trade and Industry, announced that it had signed an agreement with Park Agrotech Ghana Limited, a company incorporated in Ghana and operating in the agribusiness sector, to operate the defunct Komenda Sugar Factory.

It followed the successful completion of the bid evaluation process by the transaction advisor and a recommendation made for consideration by the ministry and Cabinet after the identification of a strategic investor with the requisite technical and financial capacity to operate the factory efficiently and profitably.

Park Agrotech was to invest $28 million in capital expenditure and working capital, including paying an annual concession fee of $3.3 million for 15 years.

Then Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, on June 3, 2020, promised that Park Agrotech would begin a comprehensive program of action to bring the factory to life as soon as restrictions on all foreign travels from the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted and all relevant approvals had been secured.

But after Ghana lifted travel restrictions from September 1, 2020, the Komenda Sugar factory remained idle, with many of the machine parts rusting.

Considering the huge amount of money Park Agrotech had to spend to revive the factory, the facility was left idle.

2024

The Akufo-Addo government in 2024, has once again initiated moves to have the factory running by finalising a 20-year lease arrangement with a new investor, West Africa Agro Limited, to operate the facility.

Kobina Tahir Hammond, Trade and Industry Minister, made the announcement on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, after visiting the sugar mill, which has not been operating for more than seven years since its commissioning.

The new company, West Africa Agro Limited, is now importing some 550 tonnes of raw sugar and refining it into sulfurless white sugar, with the aim to produce sugarcane sugar in three years.

K.T Hammond said the government has invested about GH¢45 million to put the company in shape, leading to the investor expressing interest in running the sugar factory.

"We're leasing our assets to the company, which is going to work on it and pay us at the end of the day... I am thinking of leasing it to them for 15 to 20 years with an option of extension.

"Initially, they're bringing crude sugar to refine, and from the documentation, we should be expecting some refined sugar [from sugarcane production]; it will take about three years," K.T Hammond said.

The Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa added that the contract would ensure that after the three-year period, enough sugarcane would have been cultivated on some available 31,000 hectares of land at various places, including 6,000 hectares on the project site.

This would result in the full-scale operation of the factory, ending raw sugar refining to make room for sugarcane to be processed into sulfurless white sugar at the plant.

KA/AE

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