President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is to inaugurate the first completed factory under the One district, One factory (IDIF) initiative at the Asutuare Junction off the Akosomobo Road on Tuesday, August 7, 2018.

The soya milk factory was solely funded by a Chinese investor, according to the National Coordinator of One District, One Factory secretariat, Mrs Gifty Ohene-Konadu.

"One of the projects, the soya milk factory, is ready for inauguration. The President will inaugurate it on August 7, 2018 at Asutuare Junction, off Akosomobo Road," she said.

Mrs Ohene-Konadu was speaking at the opening of a two-day training workshop for members of the Parliamentary Press Corps (PPC) at Prampram in the Greater Accra Region last Saturday.

The training workshop, which was to take new members of the PPC through parliamentary procedure, was held on the theme: "The parliamentary reporter as an effective link between Parliament and the public."

One District, One Factory

The 1D1F was one of the key campaign promises of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 election.

Mrs Ohene-Konadu said at the moment, 20 projects had received financial support from institutions and were in different stages of construction.

She said the projects went through evaluation at the secretariat and had been given financial support by the banks.

"Out of these, 13 are ready for sod cutting by the President and six projects are seeking to expand their operations," Mrs Ohene-Konadu added.

She said the approved projects covered food processing, especially potato, cassava, cashew, and shea butter, as well as pharmaceuticals, garments, tiles and bricks production.

She said the projects were being funded by the Ghana Export and Import (EXIM) Bank, GCB Bank, Barclays Bank and Standchart.

She stated that GCB Bank and the Ghana EXIM Bank had been the major supporters of the projects and indicated that they would provide more funds to support them.

Regional spread

Mrs Ohene-Konadu said the secretariat had received many business plans for the project and indicated that the proposals received covered all districts in the country.

"All regions of Ghana have had adequate representation in the submissions received," she said.

She said agro processing took 60.4 per cent of the proposals, followed by livestock processing and manufacturing with 16.6 per cent, while the health and hospital sectors were also receiving attention.

With respect to nationalities, Mrs Ohene-Konadu said Ghanaians were the dominant promoters who had submitted proposals, while some foreign investors had also done same.

She said almost all the foreign investors had touted the country’s democratic credentials for their choice of Ghana as their investment destination over the cost or ease of doing business in Ghana.

Training workshop

The Dean of the PPC, Nana A. Birikorang, said the training workshop was to expose new journalists to parliamentary procedures with a view to assisting them to report accurately.

He lauded Parliament for allocating resources to support the training for new members of the PPC.