The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has acknowledged the industrial role Volta Aluminium Company Limited (VALCO) could play in positioning Ghana’s economy once revived to function fully.
Consequently, he said government would be inviting investors to support the administration to play an instrumental role in bringing back the glory days of the company and further enhance its potential for industrial revolution around the Tema Industrial enclave to sustain and provide sustainable jobs for Ghanaians.
Addressing hundreds of employees of the company last Thursday as part of his working visit to familiarise himself with operations of the company, the Minister explained that the administration of President John Dramani Mahama does not intend to auction the company as being speculated.
“Nobody will sell VALCO under President Mahama,” he assured.
Despite the cocktail of issues emanating from employees indicating that the company was on government’s radar to be privatised, the sector Minister said it was just a figment of people’s imagination and deliberate outright falsehood fabricated by selfish few to disrupt the process of rebuilding the company considered as Ghana’s industrial machine.
“You accumulate debt and ask the tax payer to pay for it. The ultimate responsibility to make sure that this plant works is not employees. This organization has code of conduct and ethics,” he cautioned.
He said those opposing the proposed revitalization framework being offered by government must offer alternatives.
“If people genuinely have facts, they should bring it. It is our collective responsibility. Nobody has closed any deal here,” he reiterated.
He, however, observed that following the struggle of the company, many viable industries around the Tema enclave, hitherto relying on VALCO for raw materials and, ultimately, survival were either struggling or inadvertently collapsing.
“We want to make sure we turn this place around and we are in this together, we have to work together,” he appealed passionately to the workers who cheered him on with thunderous applause.
The intent of government, he reassured the workers, was basically and truly to support VALCO to become profitable.
In line with this, he called for the maximum support of the workers to make the proposed reforms being tabled by government to work for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Although government has already indicated the direction the company must go through, the Minister explained that the process would be done transparently and therefore all options have been made clear by cabinet.
“We are opened for any idea to turn around VALCO,” he emphasised.
Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah underscored the negative impact of non-performance of the company to full capacity.
“The effectiveness of the value chain is not happening because of challenges facing this company. The refineries, the smelter and all. It all starts from a profitable VALCO,” the Minister remarked.
While government remains unwavering in the search for an amicable solution to revive the company, he said it would not also tolerate propaganda and pure lies being churned out by selfish employees to disrupt the process or truncate the good intentions of government to strategically uplift performance of the company to expand exponentially, increase productivity, sustain existing workforce, create more jobs and remain profitable state enterprise.
Currently, VALCO operates with 90 cells with under-performance but could operate with the maximum capacity of 500 cells, but due to obsolete technology and equipment, the company can only manage with 800 staff with the 90 cells when in full capacity, it can actually employ not less than 2,000 workers directly and 5,000 workers cumulatively as direct and indirect.
However, the company would require not less than $700 million as investment to drive its revival, survival and growth as being anticipated by government.