The Komenda Sugar Factory has not been in operation for a while
• The Komenda sugar factory has not been operational
• President Nana Akufo-Addo says the factory was not well planned
• An economist says the projects can be discontinued if it will not benefit the country
An economist with the University of Ghana, Dr. Adu Owusu-Sarkodie, has stated that there is no need to force the Komenda sugar factory to work if it isn’t going to inure to the benefit of the country eventually.
His comments come on the back of the statement made by the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that his predecessor, John Dramani Mahama, in building the factory, had no plans in the books on where to get the needed raw materials to run the factory.
This claim, however, has been rejected by the former president, who insists all of that was in the plan.
In a report by asaaseradio.com sighted by GhanaWeb, Dr. Adu Owusu-Sarkodie said that there is no need to pursue this factory if it will produce more losses than benefits.
“We don’t have to force ourselves to necessarily continue with the Komenda Sugar Factory. We could have put up elsewhere if we felt it will still minimise cost and give us the best optimisation that we are looking for and then maybe set up a shoe factory in Komenda if that could also give us the optimisation that we are looking for.
“We must be careful as a country that wants to revitalise its industrialisation drive. We have failed on a number of occasions as a country and we don’t seem to have learnt our lessons. We are still continuing the whole political economy sort of running this country,” he said.
Dr. Adu Owusu-Sarkodie also lamented on how the political powers reposed in political authority continue to dip the country’s economy.
“I have a big problem with the fact that we are not able to dichotomize economic efficiency and political expediency. We have put so much power in the hands of the executive that sometimes they just get up, go and set up anything for political expediency for people to clap for them; for them to win votes and after winning the elections forget about efficiency,” he explained.
He, therefore, called for proper scrutiny to be done into the things that went into the building of the Komenda sugar factory.
“I want to see the report of the technocrats [on the Komenda sugar factory] and what went into the planning, what went into all the cost-benefit analysis of such factory. We don’t have to do this to ourselves as a country. We need to move beyond this,” Dr. Adu Owusu-Sarkodie said.
