The Ministry of Trade and Industry in partnership with the Rural Enterprises Programme yesterday inaugurated a rice processing factory at Nkrankwanta in the Dormaa West District of Bono Region.
The facility would serve farmers in the area and ensure that the problem of post-harvest losses are reduced or eliminated completely.
On the day, the team also inaugurated a regional technology transfer centre at Dormaa Ahenkro. The facility is expected to produce all kinds of machinery t to support government’s desire to create small scale enterprises in the country.
The Nkrankwanta rice processing factory under the 1 D 1 F common user facility and built at the cost of GH¢7.243 million has the state-of-the-art rice processing equipment with the capacity to produce 1.5 to 2.8 tonnes of processed rice per hour.
The processing plant installed at the factory include milling and packaging machines, with a standby generator and a mechanised borehole to supply the factory with water.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Michael Okyere Baafi, at the inauguration said the 1D1F programme was a phenomenal policy by the government to boost the industrialisation agenda, to address the unemployment issues in the country.
According to him a total of 296 factories had been created under the one district one factory policy which were at various stages of
completion.
The deputy minister said the Nkrankwanta rice processing factory which would create 150 direct jobs and several indirect jobs, would have farmers in the area owning the facility with 70 per cent shares, adding that traditional authorities, assembly and
the Ministry of Trade would have 10 per cent shares respectively.
He charged a nine-member board which he inaugurated yesterday to ensure proper maintenance of the facility.
The Director of the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP), Akwasi Atta-Antwi, said the programme had played a vital role in the establishment of a decentralised institutional framework to support the development of micro and small enterprises in rural areas of Ghana.
According to him a key achievement of rural enterprises and its predecessor, Rural Enterprises project phase 1 and 2 had been the establishment of rural technology facilities through a collaboration with District Assemblies and the GRATIS foundation.
The facilities, he noted had served as magnets for industrial activity, promoting technology dissemination and transfer to the informal sector.
Mr Atta-Antwi said the 1D 1 F user facility was an agro-industrial factory set up by the Rural Enterprises under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, to enhance the value addition of primary agricultural commodities.
The Dormaa Ahenkro Technology Solution Centre is a technical workshop equipped with metal working machines for the development and promotion of appropriate technology to micro, small and medium scale enterprises, spare parts production and technical training.
FROM DANIEL DZIRASAH, GONOKROM
