Raymond Archer Smells NPP Hands In Demolishing Of His $10m Factory

The Chief Executive Officer of Universal Labels & Packaging Co. Ltd, as well as Colour Planet Limited, Mr Raymond Archer, has said the Akufo-Addo government is targeting his businesses for destruction.

His factory was among the buildings that were demolished on Sunday evening by the Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited (GTFC).

A livid Archer said the demolition exercise was politically motivated.

“Four years ago, I was here when officials came that they want to redevelop the Trade Fair, so, I said: ‘OK’. I’m a legal tenant and my construction was actually supervised by the Trade Fair. I’ve put in $10 million here…so, they started doing a whole lot of things here which made me head to court,” he recalled.

Mr Archer said the demolition of his facility, therefore, came to him as a surprise, and has been wondering why businesses would be targeted for destruction in the quest to erect another for “political reasons”.

He said: “We built a beautiful factory that employs over 120 workers; there are a lot of products we are doing now that we’re the only factory in Africa that can do these kinds of works. So, to see our government target a business like this and break it down at mid-night is really unacceptable.

“We are citizens here. How do you destroy one’s business because you want to bring another person’s business using politics? If you destroy my business with politics, then what? If I also get power, I also break it down?

“Where did we go as a people? And this business has nothing to do with politics. In fact, when I was doing this business, I specifically decided not to do government projects, purposely because I didn’t want the politics in my business. Every work we're doing here is for private sector.

"So, to target the business, [and say]: ‘We're government, you can't fight the government...'; 'I’m not here to fight the government; I’m here to earn a living and an honest one at that.”

---with files from classfmonline