Trade Minister Inaugurates 5-Member-Board Of Revitalised Ayum Forest Product Ltd
Trade minister, Alan Kyeremanten, has inaugurated a 5-member-board of the Ayum Forest Product Limited.
Board members include two government representatives, two representatives from the Ayum Forest Product Limited and one ex-officio. They are: Naja David (Chairman), Tony Elradi, Andrews Adjei-Yeboah, Hon. Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Estelle Afari Djan and Frederick Ebeneku-Anim.
According to the trade minister, the government’s unusual involvement in the inauguration is due to its main responsibility of enabling collapsing factories thrive under the One-District-One-Factory Initiative.
Ayum Forest Products shut down its operations in 2016 and as a result over 2,000 workers were made redundant.
This situation adversely affected the entire Asunafo North Municipality and other adjoining districts particularly the Mim township since most of the employees of the company were from the local communities.
During the 2016 election campaign, His Excellency the President promised to revive the company when elected to office.
In pursuit of this promise, the Ministry of Trade and Industry in June 2017 assigned two Consultants to the company to undertake technical, commercial and management audit to determine the required support to revive the company.
A comprehensive due diligence revealed that the company’s total indebtedness to the various creditors was over Ghs64 million including outstanding severance pay.
The outcome of the diagnostic exercise was a request for financial support to the tune of ¢21 million to pay off part of the existing debts in the company’s books, including $8 million to Standard Chartered Bank in order to restart and revamp its operations.
Meanwhile, the company has requested additional support from the Ghana EXIM Bank to complete the revitalization programme which would lead to the re engagement of about 1500 workers.
