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The Defence Industries Holding Company Limited (DIHOC), managers of the Kumasi Shoe Factory, have accused the Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, of peddling falsehood about not being briefed on the state of the company.

Mr. Nitiwul had earlier attributed the current deplorable state of the Kumasi Shoe Factory, to the ineffective management of the company.

Speaking at the Meet the Press Series last Thursday, he also said the Ghana Armed Forces who are also shareholders in the business have been sidelined, with no accounts rendered to them by the private managers of the facility. 

“Up until now, we haven’t been able to hold a single board meeting because for some reason, government wanted to give a grant of six million cedis from one of the funds. We then picked an individual, gave him this money and gave out, as part of the six million, a grant of four million. That individual has 60%, and the armed forces have 40%. I have paid a lot of money to this individual,” he said when he took his turn at the Meet the Press Series today [Thursday],” the Minister had alleged.

However, addressing a press conference today [Monday] to respond to the comments, the acting General Manager of the DIHOC footwear division limited, Nii Konney Laryea, dismissed the claims made by Dominic Nitiwul, explaining that the company had made a presentation to him, a little while after he had been sworn in as Minister

“With great sadness, this statement is untrue, and we would wish to set the records straight. Immediately after the swearing into office of the Defence Minister, a meeting of the Company’s Board was held at Burma Camp, with the Company’s management in attendance. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss all the issues confronting the Company, and to forward same to the Hon. Minister and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) since both of them had just assumed office and were not yet briefed about the activities and challenges of the Company,” he said.

Nii Konney Laryea added that, the Board had decided to meet with the new Minister, to brief him on the operations of the company, based on which an appointment was made for a meeting at 1:30pm.

“However, the Minister was held up at the Flagstaff House and we patiently waited at till 8:00pm to meet him. We made a 15 minutes summary presentation of the content of the dossier and handed same, together with copies of the minutes of the last Board Meeting to the Minister as per the Board Meeting resolution,” Nii Konney Laryea added.

The management of the company attributed the inability of their Board to meet as regularly as they used to, to the failure of the Minister to respond officially to the dossier they had presented him.

“The Company’s inability to hold a Board Meeting every quarter, which used to be the case, can only be attributed to the Hon. Minister’s neglect or inability to act on the dossier sent to him.”

Formerly known as the Ghana Industrial Holding Footwear Company Limited (GIHOC), the Kumasi Shoe Factory was revived in 2012 through a joint partnership between a Czech company, Knight Ghana Limited, DIHOC, which is owned by the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

The company was tasked with solely producing boots for purchase by the Armed Forces and other security agencies, and footwear for students locally and for export.

However, since then, the factory has been on the verge of collapse, with a tour by government officials in August revealing that only 49 workers were currently employed there.

The factory has reportedly trained over 200 workers, but because of irregular orders, only one-third of them are currently working.

At full capacity, the factory could have about 800 workers, and would create an extra 200 jobs indirectly for distributors.