President John Dramani Mahama has visited a number of project sites and inspect ongoing works aimed at improving infrastructure in the Western Region.
The President, who ends his working visit to the region, inspected roads, educational complexes and port expansion works.
On the first day of his visit to the region, Mr. Mahama inaugurated a €23 million new cement mill at the GHACEM Factory in Takoradi, where he noted that the company's investment is a positive sign of confidence in the Ghanaian economy.
"... the construction and completion of this 23 million EURO new mill is a further attestation by Corporate Ghana and the Investing Community that Ghana, our dear country, still remains a real good place to do business despite our temporary challenges", he noted.
With the installation of the new mill, GHACEM has increased its production capacity at the Takoradi factory from 1.2million to 2million tonnes a year.
President Mahama congratulated GHACEM for the use of local materials in its production process and urged other manufacturing entities to embrace government's policy on the utilisation of local products.
The company now utilises locally procured limestone to compliment imported clinker in the production of the portland cement. President Mahama urged the company to increase the utilisation of more local inputs to meet the raw material needs arising out of the expansion of their facility.
He also restated government’s commitment to the Agenda for Transformation, assuring the business community that "we will continue to role out policies including incentive packages that will inure to the benefit of investors, especially those in the manufacturing sector."
Earlier on arrival in Takoradi, President Mahama inaugurated a newly built 20 room apartment for young officers of the Ghana Air Force. The complex, christened the Oje Lodge, after the Chief of Air Staff Air Vice Marshall Samson Oje who initiated the project, is fully furnished and is to be allocated to 20 young officers.
President Mahama noted in his remarks that government will continue to ensure that the morale and welfare of the country's security personnel are catered for to enable them perform their constitutional mandate effectively.
He also described as false, claims that some lands belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces have been sold, explaining that the military high command is only entering into some agreements under a public-private-partnership to help improve its housing infrastructure.
“We have discussed the proposed Public-Private Partnerships that the various security services have intended to do and asked them to work with the Lands Commission, Ghana Institute of Surveyors and the Land Valuation Board in order that under the PPPs we get value for money.”
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