Sugar - The Essential Commodity
Poku Adaa
Our correspondent, POKU ADAA reviews the state of sugar production in Ghana.Sugar is scarce in Ghana, as scarce as raindrops are in the middle of the Sahara. Has been scarce for many unpleasant years. Would seven year olds of today be able to tell or taste salt from sugar? For Ghana, as a nation, the road to desired sugar targets has been tortuous, faltering and very very long.
Sugar consumption in Ghana consists of domestic usage and industrial usage for sweets, food products and for local alcoholic spirit distilling. According to a University of Ghana Technical Publication, No. 21 of 1972, it is estimated that Ghana has a consumption capacity of about 90,000 tonnes of sugar annually of which up to 75% to 80% has to be procured through imports. Ministry of Finance estimates point to an annual consumption capacity of about 200,000 tonnes by the end of 1985.
Ghana has had two main sugar fact- ories since the early sixties situated at Asutsuare and Komenda. With an init- ial total target of 45,000 tonnes per year to satisfy 50% of national dem- and, the two factories have performed dismally over the past ten years, barely scrapping a total tonnage of not more than 12,000 tonnes per year.
Total tonnage of sugar produced in 1975-76 was 12,140 which decreased to nearly 11,800 in 1976-77 and fell sharply to nearly 7,000 by the end of 1978. Production levels have not fared better since then. In fact, from 1973-1978, the factories lost a total of 27.1 million in their operations.
Many reasons have been adduced to explain this slide down, among the, lack of sufficient financing, the shifting sands of management and the agricultural factors of poor irrigation, lack of rainfall and pest havoc on plantations. In fact, these are part of cumulative results of ill-planning and bad policy in starting the whole projects from the outset.
In 1963, a Sugar Products Corporation was set up to establish sugar-cane plantations and operate mills at Kom enda and Asutsuare. The Asutsuare factory was planned to be served by a 2600 hectares of farm and private planters farms of 2200 hectares with a capacity to mill 2000 tonnes of cane per day for production of 30,000 tonnes of refined sugar. It was erected by CEKOP of Poland and although commissioned to start production in 1965, actually started operations in 1966.
The factory at Komenda began production in 1967 planned to be served by a farm of 1520 hectares and private planters farms of 1200 hectares with a capacity to crush 1000 tonnes of cane per day to yield 15,000 tonnes of sugar per year. The factory was erected by the Czechoslovak company, Techno Export. The two factories were managed by the Polish and Czech companies, respectively, however, with their little knowledge of tropical sugar-cane cultivation, the development of the plantations and technical services which the private planters needed were lacking and was detrimental to the first unsure steps of the factories.
Consequently, the Sugar Products Corporation was transferred into a division of the Ghana Industrial Holding Corporation (GIHOC) in 1967 after the East Europeans left the country following the change of government in 1966. GIHOC then appoin- ted a foreign management team, Associated Consulting Engineers of Pakistan to run the factories in 1968 and 1969.
The Pakistani 'experts' made a poor job of it and the chronic wounds of the factories opened with the farms having no irrigation services at all during the period. Thus after a two year spell of bad management and poor production levels, the government acted quickly and formed the Ghana Sugar Estates Limited (GHASEL) in 1971 and following that a rehabilitating programme was embarked upon in 1972 with an invitation to the World Bank to assist.
Events later were to show how ill fated the whole scheme was to be. The World Bank tied a stiff knot of string around the granting of the loan needed for the rehabilitation project and that was the government should contract a Dutch firm, H.V.A. International of Amsterdam, to run the factories for five years. Thus yet another tier of management became foisted on Ghasel's operations to satisfy an International Development Agency loan of $15.6 million out of a total of $24.8 million requested for the project.
According to a re-appraisal Report published by the Management, Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) of Accra in 1980 and by a United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Technical Report of 1978, the years 1973-1978 of Dutch Management were the most abysmally disappointing in the annals of sugar production in Ghana.
The UNIDO Report, Appropriate Technology for the production of sugar: Ghana's experience, said inter alia, "Although the Dutch Management team has had lots of experience and expertise through 20 years of sugar-cane agriculture in Ethiopia, they realised later on, too late in fact, that management techniques that have worked successfully in Ethiopia failed hopelessly in Ghana, with the Ghana ian senior personnel left out of decision-making to the extent that a tenuous relation of non-cooperation existed between the two groups at the top which accelerated the doom and decline of the factories."
"Besides, an ambitious plan to create new plantations while the old ones were in a virtual state of neglect, collapsed in the face of the severe drought of 1976-1978." The MDPI Report specifically cited the "poor performance of Ghasel had been due to five long years of ineffective management by the Dutch company".
Thus like a microcosm of the nation herself, the sugar factories have been swinging like a pendulum with respect to top management: Polish, Czech, Pakistani and Dutch, within a comparatively short time. Continuity in planning and policy have suffered irredeemably. As if these were not enough lessons in themselves, an Indian Group, Messrs Mahta & Co were invited in 1981 to rehabilitate the factories. After a brief spell of nosing around doing nothing worthwhile, there are reports of another expert group yet again, this time with ideological connotations - from Cuba whose only expert advice was that "irrigation canals should be constructed and machines should be maintained properly".
Subsequent Reports into the operations of the factories - a current ongoing one is being undertaken by the David Livingstone Institute in Scotland - have stressed the mistakes that were made in planning the factories. First, that Komenda was simply the wrong choice of site for sugar-making and that perhaps political expediency had insisted on it at the time. The climate at Komenda, under normal conditions, is too dry for cane growing, rainfall is low and the soil type is poor, unable to retain water for cane growth.
Irrigation systems planned later to rectify the situation have been generally unsuitable because of the nature of the soil. Not surprisingly, the yield of cane at Komenda has been very low all along. Furthermore, sea-breeze can corrode machinery very quickly and create maintenance problems all the time. Thus a sugar-farm and mill at Komenda was absolutely uncalled for. Thirdly, the World Bank could not buy spare parts during the rehabilitating work from Czechoslovakia or Poland, the parent house of the factory machinery because those countries were not members of the World Bank, another planning futility.
The sugar producing industry in Ghana has been ailing consistently since 1963 and to this date, the ailments have probably turned chronic. However, optimism is usually a psychological way to avoid gloom and the MDPI in its 1980 Report has exuded optimism for the industry, for after all, sugar is sweet for Ghanaians and ak peteshie is an all-weather activator and momentary antidote for disasters. The MDPI Report suggested a conservative solution: "That the debts of Ghasel be written off by the state, and with a clean slate then be privatised to raise additional capital. Wonder how the report with its recommendations turned the Cubans pale in their recent foray into Ghana's industrial doldrums.
Apart from the long tale of Asutsu and Komenda, there have been some attempts to set up additional plants in line with a National Development Plan in the early sixties which had forecast five sugar estates and plantations by the end of that decade. The two additional plants planned for Aveyime and for Havie, both in the Volta region, have not yet materialised, although efforts to start them have been made in the past.
In May, 1975, the Japanese Cooperation Agency began a feasibility study of a sugar project at Aveyime. Their report published in June 1976, was highly in favour of the establishment of a third sugar complex in view of the gross national shortages of sugar. They recommended a cane plantation of 4,000 hectares to feed a factory which can produce 45,000 tonnes of refined sugar to square up national consumption capacity.
Significantly enough, the recommendations for a possible third sugar complex at Aveyime cane from H.V.A. International of Ghasel fame. The Sugar Industry Board which had been set up previously in 1973 accepted the idea and the go-ahead was given for the Japanese feasibility studies. The total funds of $75 million required to set up this new factory is getting difficult to obtain and the feasibility report is waiting for better times to come.
The sugar targets have yet to be reached but there are the on-going arguments as to whether, against the background of Ghasel's difficulties and failures, small-scale sugar production units may not be favourable than large-scale ventures. Whatever the case, one only hopes that future plans for sugar production will not repeat the initial planning mistakes of Ghasel in the choice of site and in the choice of a suitable technology.
