Komeda Sugar Factory Workers on Warpath with Trade Ministry

Workers of the comatose Komenda Sugar Factory in the Central Region are set for a showdown with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, following hints that several workers would be laid off without any exit package.

Workers who have been marked for redundancy are demanding their two years salary arrears and an exit package as the Akufo Addo administration seeks to sell the controversial sugar factory to another investor-The Hi Limited Group.

Whatsup News is in possession of an October 2, 2019 letter written by the powerful Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) to the Trade Minister, Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, informing him that the ICU will be responsible for negotiating the exit packages for the displaced workers.

“We wish to notify your esteemed office that, the workers of Komenda Sugar Development Company Limited have assigned us the responsibility of leading them in negotiation of the payment of their salary arrears and exit package,” Solomon Kotei, the General Secretary of the ICU wrote.

The Komenda Sugar factor has been a subject of heated controversy after the erstwhile administration of John Dramani Mahama pumped in a whopping $35million from an Indian Exim Bank, but the factory has barely operated as promised.

The failure was blamed on the unavailability of raw sugarcane to feed the factory.

The new investor is expected to produce 375,000 metric tonnes of sugar cane annually to feed the sugar factory.

The agreement signed under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry follows an assessment conducted on the factory which revealed that the lack of raw material was the major reason the factory was not operational.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Hi Limit Group, , told the GNA that his organization is investing about 78 million dollars in the factory to ensure it becomes vibrant.

“We are going to employ about 23, 000 youth who will cultivate the B41227 variety of sugar cane using an irrigation technology which will ensure an all-year-round supply,” Emmanuel Larbi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Hi Group recently announced. It is currently unclear the number of old workers of the factory that have been marked for redundancy.