President Kufuor Inaugurates Pasta Processing Plant

At last the strategic investor that President Kufuor has been seeking like Diogenes looking for the truth, is finally here. His Excellency, according to GNA (September 28, 2005) inaugurated the phase one of a $13 million dollar state-of-the-art pastas processing plant at Spintex Road, Accra. According to GNA report, the ?Government was determined to build on Ghana?s present investment friendly environment had resulted in growing investment in flow? ? the Golden Age of Business

I was so excited reading this report, but all I knew about pasta was that it was an Italian food. I asked around and was told the pasta processing plant could produce macaroni, lasagna, spaghetti, alfredo, fettuccini and pizza. Oh, how ignorant I was. We were being catapulted into the ?golden age of business? and I had no idea that pasta production was an essential component. Since I got educated about pasta, I was wondering why Dry Foods Processing Limited (our pasta saviours) did not install a plant that made pasta sauce.

And guess what? Public Agenda, on October 3, 2005, (Ghana Home Page) reported ?more than 200 factory workers of Trusty Foods Limited, producers of tomato paste and spaghetti in the country have been asked to go home as a result of trade restrictions by Nigeria?. I am strongly suggesting that His Excellency, President Kufuor, or the Hon. Kwamina Bartels, Minister for Private Sector Development, should persuade Dry Foods Processing Limited and Trusty Foods to come together so that, when Dry Foods produces the pasta, Trusty Foods could supply the Sauce. How fitting!!

After the pasta plant, we do not need the cassava processing plants. Our Presidential Special Initiative (PSI) has been excessed by pasta. After all, during the 2004 Christmas season, there was not enough cassava for even local consumption, let alone, feed a processing factory.