THE ADA Songhor Salt Project which was on the brink of collapse has been revived after Parliament recently granted the lease agreement for the development of the lagoon to Electrochem Ghana Limited, a construction company in Ghana.
The company has within its first six weeks doubled the workforce on the project including contract miners, existing staff and supporting staff who were working before its arrival; and increased their remuneration significantly.
The Songhor Lagoon, which has a capacity of producing about two million metric tonnes of salt per annum, has declined massively in production to about 200,000 metric tonnes annually with the ponds turning into mud pits as the then 20 pans being mined have now declined to just six.
A tour to the project site revealed that 14 pans had become mud pits while the remaining six had components of mud in some portions which affect the quality of salt that were mined in those pans.
David Cameron, General Manager of Electrochem Ghana Limited, in an interview, intimated that the company intended to construct 200 pans for the entire project and assured that they would employ all modern and appropriate technologies to ensure that the Songhor project rose again and produced to its maximum capacity.
“We are aiming to be one of the best in the world. It’s been three months now since we started work on the Songhor Lagoon. We have substantial number of trucks, wheel loaders, rollers, trailers, excavators and others to ensure we achieve the best,” he remarked.
In their bid to make residents part of the project, Mr. Cameron said his outfit employed more than 4000 indigenes in the coming months and had commenced construction works on community pans for residents around the Songhor Lagoon.
He also expressed their readiness to construct roads, build schools and hospitals as part of their corporate social responsibilities.
“We don’t want to leave anybody out. That is why we are constructing the pans for the community for them to also own the project and make a living,” he said.
The 12 pans will serve Nakomkorpe and its surrounding communities and will serve as the “Agbakpe” which is a portion from which those communities will win their salt.
These community pans when completed would stretch across the length and breadth of the Songhor lagoon for the “atsiakpo” making communities.
“A lot of investment has gone into this project but we will make sure we finish with the community pans before beginning our project itself,” he stated.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio