Government has secured money from the Export Trade Agricultural and Industrial Development Fund (EDAIF) to shore up the troubled Volta Star Textiles Limited while it searches for investors.

Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Minister of Trade and Industries, stated this when he met management and workers of the company during the third day of his working visit to the Volta Region.

Workers of the factory, which makes greybaft mainly for GTP as an off-taker, have been on indefinite strike over non-payment of their salaries for ten months.

Dr Spio-Garbrah said the EDAIF grant would pay salaries and some other backlogs to put the factory back into production sooner than later.

“Let me, on behalf of government, the sole shareholder, and the people of Ghana, apologise for the inconveniences to you, workers,” the Minister told the agitated workers who swarmed around him.

He expressed the hope that the search for investors would yield results soon, to put the factory back to business.

Dr Spio-Garbrah expressed regret that reports from management did not appear to have conveyed the real situation on the ground to his office.

The Minister earlier met with management staff, during which he said comprehensive efficiency tests, including worker-machine ratio and other productivity assessments, would be carried out in the factory.

Volta Star Textiles Limited was incorporated to take over Juapong Textiles Limited, founded in the early 1960s, as part of the chain in Ghana’s textile production.

Juapong Textiles, however, progressively floundered under intense competition from imported textiles over the years, leading to the withdrawal of the strategic shareholders and closure and the subsequent government intervention.

Dr Spio-Garbrah also visited Kartech Ventures, the biggest concrete moulding factory in the region, where he advised Churchill Kartey Amedzeame, Managing Director, to take advantage of facilities for equipment upgrade available to scale-up.