Following the summon of the Trade and Industry Ministry by Parliament to answer questions on the implementation plan and how the One District-One Factory would be financed, the Honourable Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen has stated on the floor of the House that the implementation plan and concept paper for the programme have been drawn and a District Implementation Support Team would be required to monitor the implementation of the projects.
In his motion before the House, he indicated that in the case of Public Private Partnership (PPP) financing, each project is based on the shareholding structure agreed between government and the strategic private sector investors such as banks and other financial institutions.
He noted that such strategic private sector investors include both domestic and foreign investors. Government’s equity investment in any project shall not exceed 30 percent.
He again told the House that the cost of each project is determined on the basis of the Business Plan of an average of between $1 million and $10 million and that the equity contributions of both government and the private sector will be used to leverage additional debt financing from local or foreign banks.
Presenting the motion before Parliament, the Minister again indicated that additional government contribution is provided in the form of infrastructural support including dedicated energy supply, tax incentives, subsidies and facilitation of access to land.
The Minister reiterated that “since a significant number of One District-One Factory projects are agro industrial projects, government will provide incentives for the production and supply of quality, competitively priced agricultural raw materials as inputs into the processing activity of the district enterprise projects. These include support to farmer based organisations in the form of extension services, provision of farm inputs, machinery and equipment, and access to credit”.
Mr. Kyerematen further explained that series of investor meetings would be organised on periodic basis for potential investors.
On the effective monitoring of projects, Mr. Alan Kyerematen noted that District Enterprise Projects (DEPs) will be tracked to evaluate the progress of the implementation of the Business Plan targets against the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and make necessary mid-course corrections to help meet the goals and also to measure the impact of the DEPs on the socio-economic development of the community.
Source: GhanaJustice/S.Ayisi
