President Akufo-Addo together with CEO of B5 Plus Steel Company and Alan Kyerematen (right) unveiling the plaque
PRESIDENT Nana Akufo-Addo has officially commissioned phase one of an $80million iron and steel factory at Larkpleku in the Ningo-Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region.
The factory, which forms part of the government’s One District, One Factory (1D1F) initiative, has the capacity to produce 60,000 tonnes of prefabricated iron and steel products annually, to serve the needs of industries in the country and West Africa.
It was constructed through collaboration between B5 Plus Limited, an Indian steel manufacturing company and the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the 1D1F Secretariat.
Commissioning the factory yesterday, President Akufo-Addo mentioned that the plant is a concrete manifestation of the new paradigm of economic development that his administration is vigorously pursuing since 2017 in insisting on value addition to industrial activities within a conducive and business friendly environment, which is making headway.
He was optimistic that factories of this nature through the 1D1F initiative would help absorb the thousands of young graduates churned out by the educational system into well-paying sustainable jobs to lift their living standards.
He indicated that government expected over 258,000 Ghanaians to secure direct jobs when the 1D1F projects come into full stream.
“What we are witnessing here today at Larkpleku is a true reflection of the benefit 1D1F policy that is the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and expansion of value addition in the country,” he said.
He was excited that B5 Plus Limited is supporting government’s agenda of import substitution, export diversification and industrial transformation agenda.
He pledged the government’s commitment to providing strategic support to companies and enterprises in Ghana to make them more productive and competitive.
“We’ll continue to enhance the incentive framework to make the 1D1F companies more competitive with incentives, including tax holidays, import duties waivers and interest free subsidies designed to give them both the capacity and competitiveness,” the President said.
The President thus directed the sector minister to address all challenges that might impede the productivity of the company as far as security to land titles and utilities are concerned.
He also asked management of B5 Plus Limited to take advantage of the incentives government is providing to establish similar factories in other parts of the country.
For his part, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Alan K. Kyerematen, said the factory is a boost to the government’s quest to build a robust industrial regime to deal with import substitution since Ghana currently imports over 4 billion cedis iron and steel into the country.
He noted that industrialising the country would help in boosting Ghana’s export by exporting to other nations with the coming into the stream, mining of iron ore in Ghana.
He said as part of the benefits of the IDIF initiative, the company would be granted a five-year tax holiday, free duties on the importation of equipment and raw materials and also be exempted from the payment of withholding tax.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of B5 Plus, Mr. Mukesh Thakwani, appealed to the government to ban the importation of prefabricated iron and steel products to give real meaning to the made-in-Ghana policy.
“We at B5 Plus believe in the made-in-Ghana policy and will continue to use local resources in our business. We now have a factory with the capacity to use local resources to produce steel and iron products to meet local demand, so we call on the government to ban the importation of any form of prefabricated materials in the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, the second phase will need an additional investment of $70 million, with installed capacity of 300,000 tonnes of mix steel products.
From Vincent Kubi, Larkpleku