The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo on 31st August’20 laid the foundation stone for the construction of Foundry and Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Machine Tooling Centre at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) in Accra. The factory will manufacture tools, spare parts, bolts and nuts and the likes to support agriculture, the oil and gas industry, road construction and the automotive industry.
The centre will also help to develop moulds to improve on the manufacturing of machine parts for automotive and agro-processing implements and facilitate cutting-edge research into foundry technology to provide new materials and processes for Ghanaian foundry industries to remain competitive.
It will further manufacture metal cast products, largely aluminium, for both the local and foreign markets.
President Akufo-Addo said: “It was important that countries acquired the capacity to design and build the basic tools and equipment needed to support their way of life, saying that was the reason that the government was establishing the centre.”
Akufo-Addo added: “Facilities at the centre would provide technical support for policy initiatives of the government such as the One-district, One-factory (1D1F), which had been established in many districts across the country and provided jobs for the youth.”
“More importantly, the centre will put us in a position to develop and grow the talents of skilled and innovative young Ghanaians who graduate from our schools and universities.”
The President further explained that the establishment of the centre was a key component of a much broader strategic framework designed to ensure that Ghana's social and economic development was driven by science, technology and innovation.
He attributed the situation to the fact that Ghana imported almost all equipment, machinery and parts for its industry, especially the manufacturing sector.
“This has not allowed the manufacturing base of our country to grow and expand and has thus rendered our economy incapable of creating the thousands and thousands of jobs that our young people yearn for to raise their living standards,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo later planted a tree and inspected nuclear reactors at the GAEC.
Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, said: “The centre would position Ghana to modernise the metal recycling units of small-scale foundries.”
He said it would also enable the production of a broad range of metals, adding that many industries needed accurate, consistent and complex parts for machines and that can be produced by CNC technology.
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