GH¢1m Funding For Pwalugu Tomato Factory
Fresh tomatoes
GOVERNMENT has announced a GH¢1 million funding to revamp the Northern Star Tomato factory at Pwalugu in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
The factory, which has a daily production capacity of 500 tonnes with about 12,500 crates of tomatoes a day, has recorded low production due to the unavailability of raw materials and broken down equipment including its vacuum pumps, which cost about 15,000 Euros, as well as the canning equipment, which also cost about GH¢49,000.
Rehabilitation of the factory is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2014 to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth in the region.
Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Trade & Industry, disclosed this recently when he paid a working visit to the Upper East region to acquaint himself with the operations and activities of the Northern Star Tomato Factory and interact with some Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).
Mr Iddrisu, as part of the visit, inaugurated a seven-member Interim Management Board to oversee the activities of the tomato factory to further open it up to public-private partnership as a management model to keep the factory viable.
According to the Minister, the rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure in the Upper East Region would be pursued vigorously to allow for all-year-round farming, adding that in 2014, government, with support from the revised Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF), would provide funding for the commencement of works on the Tamne Irrigation Project near Bawku.
Furthermore, he indicated that government would provide support for the Vea and Tono Irrigation dams to ensure the cultivation of tomato and other horticultural crops for domestic and export markets.
In 2014, the President's special support for Sheanut and Cashew project would take off with a minimum investment of GH¢5 million to increase the number of Sheanut trees to 1000, while tree seedlings would be further increased to 2000 by 2016.