Government helping foreign auto firms to kill us – Kantanka

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kantanka Automobile Limited, a local car assembling company, Kwadwo Sarfo Junior, has expressed his disappointment with the decision by government to allow two foreign-owned automobile companies to establish assembling plants in Ghana.

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, revealed at the Graphic Business Breakfast meeting held recently that government had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two automobile companies to establish assembling plants in the country.

He said it will complement government’s industrialisation agenda.

Reacting to this, Safo Jnr. said the move was wrong.

He said: “If you hear a Senior Minister say that they are going to have two more automobile plants in the country, while there is an automobile plant already in Ghana that you haven’t supported, I mean you clearly don’t even understand industrialisation or the automobile industry”.

He stressed: “You need to support what we already have here that employs Ghanaian citizens; why do you have to go out there, get a foreign company, bring them here to compete with your local industry and kill them off?

“They have money, and if you look in the things that they are talking about now, there are so many clauses. He mentioned that they have to purchase a number of certain cars from them but we [Kantanka Automobile] haven’t given you any clauses, all we’re saying is, take taxes off our vehicle and make the environment conducive for Kantanka to be able to operate”.