Group to protest over ‘abandoned’ Komenda sugar factory on July 6

A group called the Concerned Citizens of the Komenda Traditional Area has served notice of an intended demonstration over the abandoned Komenda Sugar Factory in the Central Region.

According to the group, the structure has started deteriorating due to neglect by authorities.

The group wants authorities to pay keen attention to the factory built under the John Mahama administration at Komenda.

The group intends to embark on a massive demonstration on Tuesday, July 6, 2021, to demand answers for the total neglect of the project, five years after its commissioning.

A letter addressed to the District Commander of Police, signed by the convenor of the concerned youth group, Samuel Awudzah, and two others, to notify the police in the region of the protest, indicated that “the focus of our intended demonstration is to create public awareness about the increasing deterioration of the new Komenda Sugar Factory as a consequence of its neglect by the authorities whose duty it is to ensure its operationalisation after it was commissioned on the 30th May 2016.”The demonstration is expected to start at 6:30 am on the said date.

The starting point will be the Komenda and Kissi townships respectively and will end at the Komenda junction by 1:30 pm.

Komenda Sugar Factory still sits idle

The delay in naming a strategic investor to help revamp the ailing Komenda Sugar Factory has deepened the woes of the establishment.

Currently, the $60-million factory located at Komenda in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) municipality in the Central Region is wasting away, as it is overgrown with weeds resulting from three years of lying idle.

The harsh weather conditions and the salty breeze from the Atlantic Ocean that lies about three kilometres from the factory have triggered rapid corrosion of the metallic parts of machinery at the factory. Just

The rusty metallic parts of machines indicate that further delay in putting the factory to use could lead to additional costs in terms of repairs and replacement of those parts.

At the cane yard, for instance, the cane table which drops sugar cane into the conveyor belt during processing is rusted.

The cutter, which receives sugar cane from the conveyor belt for processing, and the vaporisation chamber had not been spared, as they are also dusty and lay idle.