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2021-03-19

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2021-03-16

[I] Nick Candy leads £1m drive to oust London mayor Sadiq Khan
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General News

[ 2016-06-17 ]

NPP collapsed Pwalugu Tomato Factory - NDC
The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has
asked Ghanaians to hold the New Patriotic Party
(NPP) responsible for the collapse of the Northern
Star Tomato Company (NSTC) at Pwalugu in the Upper
East region.

This is not the first time controversy involving
the two parties over the breakdown of Ghana’s
only tomato-processing factory in the North has
come to the fore. But this is the first time blame
has been heaped upon the NPP for its collapse.

The Upper East regional executives and supporters
of the NPP held a news conference last weekend in
Bolgatanga, the regional capital, strongly
faulting the NDC government for failing to
“revamp” the factory among other alleged
botched promises.

But regional executives and members of the NDC
countered it Wednesday in the same capital. They
did not only rubbish the issues raised by the NPP
as “politics of lies and deceit” but also
grabbed that opportunity to spell out some
developments they touted as unmatched achievements
of the Mahama Administration since 2013.

“Those who are asking for the state of the
factory had the opportunity to provide us with
answers when they were in government but they did
not do it,” the NDC Regional Secretary, Donatus
Akamugre, said.

“An attempt was made to revamp the factory in
2005 when an Italian company was negotiated to
refurbish the factory and operate to produce
semi-concentrate for Trustee Food Ghana Limited, a
factory in Tema, to buy and further process into a
final product for the market. The company produced
for two seasons namely 2006 and 2007 crop years
and abandoned the project in May, 2008. It is not
under NDC regime that the tomato factory project
was abandoned. It was abandoned in NPP’s regime
in May, 2008,” he added as members of the party
enthusiastically backed the claim with applause
inside the mini conference hall of the Sacred
Heart Catholic Social Centre.

NDC on state of the factory

Mr. Akamugre, who is also the board chairman of
the company, further explained that the NDC, after
recapturing power in 2008, engaged Ghanaian
experts to produce semi-concentrate (the product
often referred to as tomato paste or purée) but
the Tema-based company “refused to buy it”.

Government, following that refusal, then, decided
to have the factory itself process the purée into
finished goods and package them for retail
markets. So, the Ministry of Trade and Industry
ordered re-tort and seamier, the machines required
for the processing.

But some limitations, including erratic supply of
raw materials (tomatoes), destabilised operations
and eventually put production on hold.

He disclosed that government had contracted the
Worldwide Investments Company, a transaction
advisor, in what he described as a public-private
partnership (PPP), to help chart a more viable
path for the smooth running of the factory.

“This has been completed and is currently
before the Chief Director of the Ministry of Trade
and Industry for further actions,” the Regional
Secretary concluded.

NPP fights back

The revival of that factory in the middle of the
last decade is a landmark intervention the NPP has
been flaunting nationwide as one of the
credentials that distinguish the party as a
greater deliverer of jobs and a better handler of
the country’s economy than any other party.

Guiding that feat jealously, even more so in an
election year brimming with boiling issues that
have shifted parties to the edge, the NPP has
refused to bow to the NDC’s claim that the same
factory it resuscitated vigorously in 2005 slumped
back into operational coma in 2008 under its
doleful watch.

“Even in 2009 and beyond, they (the NDC) were
still producing the purée. From 2009 onwards, the
purée was abandoned. They left it at the factory.
They never exported it and they did not even order
tomatoes again. So, the factory, then, grounded to
a halt. And the purée got rotten and maggots took
over the whole place. That didn’t happen in
2008. It happened in 2009. And how come the
factory was getting market for the purée under
the NPP but they (the NDC) could not get market
for it? You can go to the factory and find out.
The factory collapsed after 2009. The records are
there,” the head of the NPP’s communications
team in the region, Edward Awuni, told Starr
News.

Projects President Mahama is coming to show

The NPP at its news conference jeered at
President John Dramani Mahama who on his
“Accounting to the People” campaign circuit so
far has toured four regions including the Volta,
the Central, the Western and the Brong Ahafo
regions.

The President, in the NPP’s judgement, was due
to take the tour to the Upper East Region in the
first week of June, this year, but the trip was
shelved indefinitely because his government had
done nothing there to publicly account for.

The NPP pointed at a number of derelict major
structures still weeping for reconstruction in the
region as a proof of failure and neglect on
government’s part. Mention was made of the
Bolgatanga-Bawku Road and the meat factory at
Zuarungu among other dilapidated amenities. And an
inventory of some projects the Mahama-steered
government was said to have promised but failed to
deliver was laid bare at the conference. Those
include the Bolgatanga Airstrip, a new regional
hospital, two hundred day second-cycle schools, a
market at Zebilla (capital of the Bawku West
District) as well as a polyclinic and a sports
complex for the regional capital.

The NDC’s regional executives replied in no
small measure, cataloguing a number of physical
projects a number of which they said were ripe for
outdooring on the President’s anticipated
visit.

At least 49 structures, according to the NDC,
have been provided across the region’s thirteen
municipalities and districts. The structures
comprise classroom blocks, dormitories,
Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS)
compounds and improved ventilated pit latrines
(KVIPs). Six bungalows for teachers and health
professionals have been constructed and four
complexes are near completion.

Rehabilitation of the Toende Irrigation Dam and
the Sapeliga Small Town Water System in the Bawku
West District, construction of Small Town Water
System at Pwalugu, rehabilitation of a bungalow
for Ambulance Service at Tongo, construction of
bitumen-surfaced road between Winkogo and Tongo
and provision of furniture for students were
mentioned.

The party also itemised the upgrading of Soe
Township roads (3.72km) between Soe and Zaare,
partial reconstruction of Estate Roads (4km),
upgrading of the roads within Bukere, Atulbabisi
and Ministries Area (3.9km) and campus road
network with provision of streetlights at the
Bolgatanga Technical Institute (BOTECH) among the
developments seen so far in the regional capital
.

Government, the executives said, had drilled 324
boreholes in the region, expanded the Ghana School
Feeding Programme (GSFP) to cover no fewer than 20
schools and paid 49,117 beneficiaries of the
Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) a
total of G¢2,754, 810.00.

NDC delivers more jabs to NPP

Questions persistently raised by the NPP were met
with answers from the NDC at the counter
conference. The NDC’s statement kangarooed
extensively, from issues of alleged ethnocentrism,
unemployment, the National Health Insurance
Scheme, the Bolgatanga-Bawku Road, postponement of
the President’s tour to the Savannah Accelerated
Development Authority (SADA).

“The postponement of the President’s visit to
the Upper East Region was due to more national
pressing issues of great concern which is well
known and effectively communicated to the good
people of the region. Also, the inability of the
Vice President to grace the Farmers’ Day
celebration in the region is widely known [to]
every Ghanaian to be as a result of a sudden bad
weather condition which would not allow aircraft
to take off and land because of poor visibility.

If these vital coincidences are seen by NPP as
swerves because of nonperformance of government in
the region in terms of development, we want to ask
NPP to tell us the reason why President Kufuor did
not take part in the celebration of Ghana’s
Independence Day in 2002,” the statement
explained.

It added: “In, 2002, President Kufuor was [in]
Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of States
Conference. The conference ended on 5th March,
2002, but the then presidential spokesperson,
Kwabena Agyapong, responded to the concerns raised
that as per travelling arrangements Kufuor could
not come back to Ghana to celebrate the event that
made it possible for him to become president. Does
the NPP want to get Ghanaians to believe that it
was because of poor performance that Kufuor did
not come to celebrate the Independence Day?”

The NDC also brushed off the NPP’s
“ethnocentric” tag on President Mahama, saying
the President had not contested any election as a
northerner but as a Ghanaian.

“Statistical evidences illustrate that the
presidential voting pattern in the Upper East
Region points contrary to the NPP’s claim. It is
important to note that President Jerry John
Rawlings’ percentage of votes, 68.99% (in 1996),
in the region is even higher than President John
Dramani Mahama’s 66.43% (in 2012).

“Before the NPP left office in 2009, the total
number of active members under the National Health
Insurance Scheme was highly insignificant.
However, under the reigns of the NDC, the active
membership shot up to 561,359 in 2012; 643, 264 in
2013; 627,659 in 2014; 617, 479 in 2015 and 163,
008 as at March, 2016,” the statement pointed
out.

SADA, despite the challenges confronting it,
according to the NDC, has, under its Millennium
Village Project (MVP), delivered roads in the West
Mamprusi and Builsa South districts, CHPS
compounds at Gbedembilisi and Wiesi in the Builsa
District and rehabilitated the Fumbisi Health
Centre in the same district. The Youth Employment
Agency (YEA), the party added, had recruited 5,144
youth set to begin work in the various modules by
the end of August, this year.

On the Bolgatanga-Bawku Road, which had been in
the hands of some contractors tasked to re-gravel
the stretch and provide culverts and drainage
systems, the NDC disclosed that a new contractor
had been awarded the job to reconstruct the
highway "and has started moving the equipment to
the site". Ripples of reactions from the NPP in
the region are bound to trail the NDC's counter
conference in the coming days.

Source - Starrfmonline.com



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