Former Trade Minister under the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Alan Kojo Kyerematen, has rejected criticisms his failure to deliver on the many presidential initiatives he supervised during his time as minister is the reason for the collapse of several state industries including the Ayensu Starch Factory.
In an interview with Metro TV’s Paul Adom Otchere, the former minister who was in charge of the president’s special initiative in 2001 insisted the project was a huge success until the NDC took over power.
He said the governing NDC’s neglect of the project is rather the reason for the collapse of the initiative including the Ayensu Starch Factory.
President Kufuor in 2001 introduced the president’s special initiatives with the view to industrialising the country’s economy by focusing on the processing of raw materials.
The programme however failed to make the needed impact soon after its introduction with many, particularly members of the NDC blaming it on poor management.
But the man in charge of the project at the time, Alan Kyerematen, insists it was a huge success under the NPP government accusing the NDC government of collapsing the programme and subsequently factories in the country.
“When we started the Ayensu starch factory, over 10,000 farmers were supplying products. Fast forward, our first major commercial order was from Nestle Global, can you imagine Nestle buying a processed raw material from a factory in Ghana?”
“People do so much propaganda that in actual fact it stifles innovation. For the first time in the history of our country, we had a global company buying processed raw material into their global operations. Do you think Nestle will undermine their international credibility and buy from a factory in Ghana? That’s what Ayensu was.”
He added Ayensu Starch would have been a much bigger company producing for several entities across the world if the NDC had continued with the interventions put in place by the Kufuor government.
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