General News of Sunday, 6 January 2008

Source: GNA

Apostle Safo to establish vehicle-assembling plant

Accra, Jan 06, GNA-The technical division of the Kristo Asafo Church, the Great Kosa Limited, is to establish a vehicle assembling plant in Ghana.

The proposed site would be a 400-acre land acquired at Okyereko, near the present location of the company at Gomoa Mpota, in the Central Region Mr. Festus Owusu Badu, General Secretary of the Great Kosa Limited said that the Company, under the Church's leader, Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo, was negotiating with a German company, the FAW to help establish the assembling plant in Ghana.

In an interaction with journalists after a presentation on the Company at the 59th Annual New Year School, underway at the University of Ghana, Legon, Mr Badu said the Company was also in contact with some companies in China to commercialise the production of its vehicles.

Mr Badu said the Great Kosa Limited, which currently employs about 400 people, so far had produced a saloon car, two types of cross-country vehicles and a limousine in 2007, which it called the Kantanka Obrempong. Some of the proposed vehicles, according to Mr Badu, which would be produced in large quantities would be saloon cars, pick ups, cross-country vehicles and buses.

The main problem however, was about funding, but the Company was in touch with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for support. Mr Badu underscored the importance of the application of appropriate technology in promoting community development, adding, "non application of local appropriate technology rather helped foreign technology to thrive" He observed that Apostle Safo understood technology very well, and could manufacture some of the equipment that would be needed in the assembling process, adding that the works of the company had been well documented.

Participants at the School were later shown electronic items, and designs of electronic items produced by the Great Kosa Limited. The Annual New Year School is a one-week extra-mural programme organised annually by the Institute of Adult Education of the University of Ghana and the theme for this year's event is; "Tertiary Education and National Development".

Participants at the School, which spans January 3, 2008 to January 10, 2008, are engaged in symposia, panel discussion and lectures on topics like: "Promoting Health for All: The Challenges," and "Increasing the Utilisation of Information, Communication and Technology in Tertiary Education."